Fifteen years ago, Johnny Joey Jones stepped on an IED in Afghanistan, a moment that cost him both legs and claimed the life of a fellow Marine.
The Fox News contributor marks every August 6 not with sorrow, but with purpose. It’s his Alive Day, the day he nearly died, but didn’t. “We celebrate it like a birthday every year,” Jones, now 38, says. “Be thankful for that and go do great things.”
A Day That Redefined His Life
On August 6, 2010, then-24-year-old Marine Staff Sergeant Jones was clearing the streets of Safar Bazaar, Afghanistan. His two-man bomb disposal team had already uncovered more than 30 IEDs in just five days. The Taliban had seeded the area with explosives in hopes of inflicting lasting damage, long after they’d retreated.
“We had been busy,” Jones recalls. “But that morning, my friend, Corporal Daniel Greer, asked for help investigating a storage unit. While analyzing a flare, I stepped on a bomb.”
The blast threw Jones onto his back. “I felt my face before anything else,” he remembers. “I wasn’t sure if it was still there.”
Both legs were gone above the knee. His right forearm was nearly severed. His left arm was hidden beneath his body, and for a moment, he feared it was gone too.
Greer, he thought, had only been knocked unconscious. But at the hospital in Germany two days later, Jones awoke to devastating news. When he asked where Greer was, the nurse smiled and said:
“You’ve lost both your legs above the knee. But don’t worry, hon, you’re going to walk again.”
That response, Jones says, shaped everything that came after.
“She knew that first moment would set the tone for my recovery. If she’d said, ‘Your friend’s brain dead down the hall,’ I might not have fought so hard to live.”
From Trauma to Triumph
Jones spent 10 months recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. It was grueling.
“Doctors had to reattach muscles in new places,” he explains. “The hardest part was getting through the frustration and pain to learn to use what I had left.”
But he had reasons to fight. A new baby. A family that loved him. And a promise to live a life worthy of Daniel Greer’s sacrifice.
“I was never resentful about losing my legs,” Jones says. “But I owed it to Dan, and to myself, to make something of it.”
He did. Jones earned a degree from Georgetown University, joined Fox News in 2019, and became a regular face on shows like Fox & Friends and Fox Nation Outdoors. His commentary covers not only veteran issues but politics and culture, delivered in the unmistakable southern drawl of his hometown, Dalton, Georgia.
“I live in a town with more cows than people,” he laughs. “And when I speak, people hear someone who sounds like them. They come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for saying what we’re thinking.’”
A Life of Service — Still, Jones opens up on parenthood
Jones serves on the board of Boot Campaign, a nonprofit focused on treating veterans with post-traumatic stress, brain injuries, and chronic pain. This weekend, he’ll spend part of his Alive Day in Madison, Mississippi, speaking at a Warrior Bonfire Program retreat for fellow Purple Heart recipients.
“I try to work on my Alive Day,” he says. “I’m still here, still speaking, still helping.”
When the weekend ends, he’ll fly home to be with his family: his son, Joseph; daughter, Margo; and his wife Meg, the high school sweetheart who once told him, “Well, have fun,” when he joined the Marines after she broke up with him.
Years later, they reunited and married in 2012.
“She helped me grow up,” Jones says. “She taught me to put others first. The Marine Corps taught me the rest.”
Unbroken Bonds of Battle
Jones tells much of his story in his memoir, Unbroken Bonds of Battle, published in 2023. It’s a tribute not just to his journey, but to the friends who shaped it, including Stacy Greer, Daniel’s widow, who contributed her own reflections.
At its heart, Jones’ story is one of survival, resilience, and finding strength in service.
“Alive Day is a reminder,” he says. “I lived. So now, let’s make it count.”
