FEATURES

Airman turns career around after confinement

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Siuta B. Ika
  • 99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. --  Boxed in by cold white brick walls and murky blue carpeted floors with nothing but a rickety desk separating his twin-size bed from a closet full of rank-less uniforms, Airman Basic Council Jones had hit the lowest point of his young life in October 2007.

Seven months earlier, Jones arrived at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, freshly "blued" and ready for duty; but here he was now, at Lackland AFB's correctional confinement facility -- a place he would call home for 30 days.

"At that time I was so hopeless," Jones said. "I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I was blaming everyone but myself."

Rocky beginnings

A native of Huntsville, Alabama, Jones went to basic training in August 2006 with a contract to become a security forces member. Initially drawing an assignment to Beale AFB, California, Jones traded duty stations with a classmate whose fiancée was living in California -- a move that would take him to Laughlin AFB in March 2007.

In June 2007 an incident occurred involving Airmen in Jones' squadron, so the unit was down to minimum manning and all members' projected leave was canceled. Having planned and bought a plane ticket back to Alabama during a weekend in which he was off duty anyway, Jones decided to go against his commander's order and head back home for the Fourth of July weekend.

"They told everyone not to leave the area and that San Antonio was the furthest away you could go without being on leave. So I worked Wednesday and Thursday, and I thought since I'm off this weekend anyway I could go home and come back on Sunday, no harm no foul," Jones said. "So that's what I did. I got a ride up to San Antonio to catch a plane on Thursday night. On Friday while I'm at home, I get a phone call from the area of the base, and then the law enforcement desk called me and said the first sergeant was trying to get ahold of me."

Jones called his first sergeant and told him he was in San Antonio, so the first sergeant told Jones to go to the Lackland LE desk and have them call the Laughlin LE desk to verify he was really there.

"So I just tried to go along with it to see if it would blow over, but after about an hour the shirt called to ask where I was, and I told him I was stuck in traffic," Jones said. "About 30 minutes later he called me back and I knew he thought something was up because he was like, 'Jones, where are you really?' And I sighed and said I was back in Alabama."

The first sergeant then told Jones he had an appointment with the commander first thing Monday morning. Jones was livid.

Making matters worse

"Before I actually walked in the commander's office that next day, the shirt pulled me to the side and said to just take the command-directed (letter of reprimand) and call it a day," Jones said. "I wasn't happy about that. So the commander is talking to me with my entire chain of command behind me from my chief to my supervisor, and he said 'I got a right mind to kick you out of the Air Force right now,' and I said 'Do whatever you (expletive) feel.'"

Stunned and with the room so quiet you could hear a pin drop, Jones' commander told his enlisted leadership to get Jones out of his office. But the expletive-laced rant was just beginning.

"As I'm being taken out of the office, I'm cussing and screaming at everybody, going off on my entire leadership, every single person that was there," Jones said. "And I'm crying, blaming everybody, and one guy who I basically credit with saving my career, then-Tech. Sgt. Joseph Joslin, he pulled me aside, looks at me and was like 'Jones what are you doing? Everything that you've worked for and everything you've done you're about to piss it all away right now.' And I told him I didn't care, I just wanted to go home. So he sat me there and let me get my composure, and says 'You ready?'"

Instead of just receiving the command-directed LOR, Jones was now on the hook for 10 different charges. Throughout the three-month investigation for his charges, Jones lost his badge and beret and was relegated to cleaning duty around the squadron.

After the investigation closed, Jones' commander called him back into his office.

"He said 'Jones you told me to do whatever I feel, so this is what I feel -- you will now be reduced from the rank of airman first class to airman basic, forfeiture of half a months' pay for two months, extra duty, base restriction upon return, and your being sentence to Lackland AFB Medina Correctional Facility for 30 days," Jones said. "My heart dropped. Everything else I was kind of expecting it because I disrespected everybody, but when he told me I had to go to jail my heart dropped."

For the entire month of October 2007, Jones was held in correctional confinement.

"The facility was near the security forces tech school, so it was embarrassing because I had an escort to the shoppette to buy supplies and I looked like someone who was in a correctional facility and I saw some of my old cadre, people that had just sent me off to my first base a few months ago," Jones said. "My commander came to see me two times and the second time when he came to see me, I was still upset and in that mindset that it wasn't my fault -- the Air Force did me wrong. I had a lot of anger toward him still, but he told me to use that experience as a re-motivational tool, because if I came back and tried to do the same things as before I wouldn't make it very long in this Air Force."

In trouble again

Upon his release, Jones was determined to separate himself from his past so he started down a new path, but again went off course.

One late night on patrol, Jones dozed off during a lull in action.

"I was de-armed and relieved of duty again. I hadn't even been back on flight for one week," Jones said. "I went back to see the commander again and before I left his office that day he said, 'If I see you in my office one more time, I will kick you out of the military.'"

This was it for Jones -- he was at the fork in the road and had to decide which path he would take. Jones took 15 days of leave to find his answer. For 15 days Jones stayed in his dorm room, prayed, talked to family members who were military veterans, and did "a whole lot" of soul searching.

Rising from the ashes

Much like a butterfly leaving its chrysalis behind, Jones accepted responsibility for his actions and chose to not let his checkered past define his future.

One late night, he saw his commander's car parked in front of the squadron. Jones' commander was set to make a permanent change of station and was clearing out his office. Jones had one burning question to ask his outgoing commander before he left Laughlin AFB.

"So I knocked on his door, he said I could come in and I asked him why he chose to keep me in, because when I was in confinement, he had kicked out a few of my friends for what I considered to be less offenses," Jones said. "He was packing his stuff up, but he stopped, looked me in the eyes and said, 'Because I see something special in you. Don't prove me wrong.'"

From that point on, Jones was determined to make his old commander proud. In September 2008, he deployed to Iraq as an airman basic who was looking to make a difference.

"While I was down there, we did some really good things," Jones said. "And I actually won the Airman of the Quarter award at the squadron and group level when I got back."

In January 2010, Jones PCS'd to Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, and deployed to Afghanistan for eight months in May 2010 with the U.S. Army's 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, which would earn him an Army Commendation Medal.

As a senior airman looking for a new challenge, Jones became the unit deployment manager -- a position that had normally been filled by technical sergeants -- for a squadron with more than 400 defenders. During his two-year stint as the UDM, Jones won the 52nd Fighter Wing's Airman of the Year award, was praised by the installation deployment officer for being the best UDM he had, and made staff sergeant.

In January 2014, Jones came to the 99th Security Forces Squadron and Nellis AFB. By May 2014, Jones had already been accepted as an airman dormitory leader, or dorm manager, for the 99th Civil Engineer Squadron.

Moving forward

As a dorm manager at Nellis AFB, Jones gets to do what he loves the most: helping young people.

"In the military, one of the greatest jobs we can have, and I know it sounds so cliché, is being a supervisor and a mentor," Jones said. "I love it because you have the single-most important impact on the way somebody's career can go. If it wasn't for Sergeant Joslin talking to me, mentoring me, being there for me, I would've had such a hate for the Air Force that I would've gotten out a long time ago."

Jones, who just tested for technical sergeant for the first time this year, knows he couldn't have come this far without a mentor to pick him up when he fell -- a mentor like now-Master Sgt. Joslin, 91st Operations Group and 91st Maintenance Operation Squadron first sergeant, Minot AFB, N.D.

"Airman Jones had a great work ethic that I could see in him and he worked well with the public. He just could not grasp the concept that the Air Force required a high level of integrity and he needed to be all in," Joslin said. "The confidence and leadership he has now is a long way from the Airman that had one foot out the door back at Laughlin AFB. I think Staff Sgt. Jones can be someone that Airmen can look at if they have a rocky start in the Air Force and show them that we are not a one-mistake Air Force and some of our best people had adversity but were able to overcome it."

Jones still sees plenty of challenges ahead of him and has a checklist of goals he wants to accomplish while in the Air Force -- complete a bachelor's degree, publish a second book of poetry, become a military training instructor, and reach the rank of chief master sergeant -- but he knows none of those goals would've been possible if he didn't change his attitude and if he wasn't given second and third chances more than seven years ago.

"I've been very fortunate to have been given another chance, because I love what I do and I love the Air Force," Jones said. "Even though you may falter, fail or make a mistake, no matter what, as long as you have that drive to succeed and overcome, you can always bounce back. You may not bounce back into a situation you want to be in, but you do have a chance to recover. It may hurt and come with trials, tribulations and a lot of hoops to jump through, but if you want it bad enough, is there anything you wouldn't do for it? Because I did, so it's doable."