Unbroken Bonds of Battle by Johnny Joey Jones

Author:Johnny Joey Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

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HELPING OTHERS WITH THE JOURNEY HOME

Jay has been around the fight game and football for a very long time. He also has a great respect for men and women in uniform, those who are willing to go out and fight. He related to me that he lost a best friend on 9/11. Jay was in New York on that day and the loss of that friend affected him greatly. He was in lower Manhattan and searched through the rubble for his buddy. He went to different hospitals checking to see if he’d been admitted. Amid all the chaos of the day, he remembered these two fighter jets passing overhead. Of course, that’s a very loud and intimidating sound. But he remembered an overwhelming feeling of safety and security coming over him. Like, oh, man, they’re keeping us safe. And that stuck with him.

In his role in training athletes and others, in being in the pro sports area, Jay had encountered a lot of athletes who were struggling with transitioning and finding their greatness again, remembering who they are and understanding that they got where they had because they’d outworked the world to get the opportunity to play on the big stage or to fight in the arena. I met him when I was trying to get a chance to play in the NFL and he trained me up for that.

We shared an understanding that what goes on in sports and the military and the struggle with no longer wearing the uniform is very similar. We don’t compare the two: sports are games and war is war. But losing the identity that you had, that sense of purpose, that team, is something that individuals in both worlds share and face difficulties with. You have to keep in mind that for a lot of them in both realms, it happens to them when they’re very young. It’s not on their own terms and it frequently happens in a flash. You get cut. You get wounded. You no longer figure in the game plan. You’re no longer a part of the mission. Some of us, like me, we’re lucky that we make the choice ourselves. But we still don’t know exactly what’s coming next.

Athletes and military personnel have a mutual respect for one another. So, with MVP, we bring the two different teams together. We help them walk that walk together. That lets them know that they’re not alone. It also exposes them to people with a different background, a different career, and different stories, but who can still relate to you. We try to get them to understand that you’re not the uniform you wore. You put that uniform on. Yes, it was a part of who you are, but the essential elements of you are still there. You did a job. You were the person underneath that uniform. Those qualities you had are not gone.

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