Soldier tells class about service in Afghanistan

U.S. Army Spc. Jason Jones, 24, of Seymour wanted to know what Seymour Middle School students thought about the war in Afghanistan.

So he asked them.

“How many of you know what we are doing over there?” he asked, dressed in his camouflage fatigues, during a convocation Thursday afternoon at the school. “I know you guys have watched CNN before, but the TV doesn’t always report everything. They are always talking about death and destruction.”

One student raised his hand.

“Keeping the peace?” the boy said with some hesitation.

“Exactly,” Jones responded. “Our main focus is to keep terrorists out of Afghanistan. Some people don’t agree with it, but it’s our job and it’s what we have to do.”

Jones, a 2004 Seymour High School graduate, is currently on a 15-day leave from a yearlong tour of duty in Afghanistan. He will leave Nov. 28 to return to Afghanistan for four more months.

His brother, Jordan Jones, is an eighth-grader at SMS.

“It’s cool that everyone gets to hear what it’s like over there,” Jordan said of inviting his brother to speak to his classmates.

“He’s like a real big G.I. Joe,” Jordan said.

On his first mission, Jason said he learned a lot about life in Afghanistan.

“Our first mission was to help the locals,” he said. “We had to pull security for a bridge project they were doing to ensure ours and their safety and to keep the peace.”

Jason’s job in the military is engineering.

Coming home, he said he is discouraged and disappointed by how people of Middle Eastern descent are treated in the United States.

“A lot of people see someone that is different and automatically think they are a terrorist,” he said. “That’s sad to me because I work and live with these people.”

He described the living conditions in Afghanistan as “primitive.”

“Everyone raises cattle and you see little kids running around with no shoes,” he said. “There are no bathrooms or trash service.”

Also, it takes 55 of their dollars to equal one U.S. dollar, he added.

But, he said, it’s not the military’s job to change the Afghans’ way of life.

“We aren’t there to make them live the way we live,” he said. “We are just trying to make it easer for them.”

When asked by someone in the audience about his feelings toward a possible increase of 40,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, Jason said he didn’t think it would do much good.

“Forty thousand more troops is like pouring more oil into a busted head, it’s not fixing the problem,” he said. “If we keep doing what we are doing, Afghanistan will be safe.”

He likened the Taliban’s hold over the country to that of a schoolyard bully.

“The Taliban is like a bunch of school bullies taking kids’ lunch money and that’s what we are trying to stop,” he said.

Their focus, he added, is on the youth.

“We try to focus on the kids over there because they are the future,” he said.

Principal Doug McClure said he thought having Jason speak to the students was a way to encourage them and make them more appreciative of those serving their country.

“We wanted to let you know that there are people here in Seymour that are serving overseas to protect our community and our country,” he said. “There is not enough gratitude we can show to them.”

But Jason said he doesn’t do it for the thanks he receives.

“You take an oath and pledge in front of that flag,” he said. “You earn that respect from the flag and that is something to be proud of. You don’t do it for the money, the thanks or the parades. You know you are doing it for a reason.”

It’s that sense of duty and patriotism that made the recent Fort Hood shootings have such an emotional impact on all soldiers, he said.

“It really, really hurt,” he said. “It was like a knife in the back.”

Jason said before he enlisted he had a good job at Walmart Distribution Center in Seymour.

“I just wanted a starting point to my life and something to look back on and be proud of,” he said of why he joined the Army. “I’ve always been the type of person to step up and do things and I felt this was the right thing to do.”
Although he is proud of his brother and looks up to him, Jordan said he probably won’t join the military when he gets older.

“He won’t let me,” Jordan said of his brother.

“He’s doing so good in school, I just want to see him continue with that and get a good career,” Jason said.

“That’s not to say that it’s only the kids who do bad in school that join the military.”

He encouraged students to do their homework, graduate and have a good work ethic, no matter what career they choose.

Jason is the son of Alan and Annette Jones of Seymour. He has one sister, Michelle, 28, also of Seymour. He is married to Leslie Jones and they have one son, Landon, 3.