Inside The Perilous Job Of A First Responder
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Thanks for joining us here on the Jason in the House podcast. I know you're going to like this because Joey Jones is our guest today. You've seen him on Fox News. Look, this guy, he's amazing. Wonderful human being, served his country, loves his country, was hit by an improvised explosive device. He was one that stepped up to volunteer to deal with these bombs and then...

He'll tell you a little bit about his story, I'm sure. I did a previous podcast with Joey. If you want to get even more in depth with his bio and what he's done, that would be a really good one to go back. But he's got a new book, Behind the Badge. So it's just coming out, Joey Jones, Behind the Badge. And it tells these different stories about

and illuminates what these people have gone through a lot of first responders those types of you know they're a special personality special breed and it comes with a different approach and a different thought and i just i want to dive a little deeper into into that ask joey about it and talk about his new book um it's just coming out it uh behind the badge with joey jones um

So we're going to talk to him. I'm going to highlight the news. And then we're going to highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And I got one good one. You may have seen it. You may not have. But let's talk about the news first. These immigration rates, you know, Donald Trump was elected with a with a mandate. I think people understood that illegal immigration has gotten so out of control.

that there was a criminal element by the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people that are here illegally and commit crimes. Now, being here illegally is, that's a crime. You can't do that. It's against the law. And, you know, we have a principle in this country. It's called restitution. It's what makes law and order work. And that is if you steal something, you put it back. You break a window, you fix it.

If you are here illegally, you're going to have to go back and come in through the front door. And I like to remind people that legally and lawfully, we bring in more people each year than all other countries combined. So there are over a million people that will come here legally and lawfully, and they're always the ones we forget about, right? They weren't willing to break the law. Those are the ones we want to have be our friends and neighbors and live in our communities.

Everybody says, oh, we're a nation of immigrants. Yeah, we're a nation of immigrants. But you come in through the front door and you do it legally, lawfully, and you do it the right way. That's the first sign that you're going to be a good American citizen, that you're going to be part of our community. And you're going to wave that American flag and be proud of the fact that you are a

An American. You've left your other country to be here. So now we have all these so-called riots and stuff going out because ICE, Homeland Security, is doing their jobs going out there, getting these criminal aliens, detaining them and enforcing the law.

A lot of these people have federal orders from a federal judge to depart the country. They haven't left. You can't just ignore that. That's not optional in this country. That's not how law and order works. And so to see those attacks on law enforcement who are out there, I feel for the spouses of these people.

You know, they're out there and, you know, some get hit, some get attacked. These need to start continuing to arrest them, have them go through the process and potentially get deported. If you're here illegally, that's what's going to happen in this administration because that is the current law. And Democrats try to wail. And, you know, I see the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, who I served with in Congress yesterday.

I see Gavin Newsom. I see others. They just go out of their way to try to prioritize illegal aliens and the criminal element above and beyond Americans who pay their taxes, live a peaceful life and just want to be part of the business community or or do whatever they want to do that isn't breaking the law. And I know you see that and feel that, too.

But it is so infuriating to see them waving the Mexican flag or other flags. They're not all Mexican flags. But you know what? If you love Mexico so much, go back to Mexico with all due respect. If that's where you want to be, then go back to Mexico. We can help you get there. In fact, there's an app for that. So, you know, it's just...

We've got to do this and we got to do it right. And they got to do it in mass. And that's what's happening. And it's sad that it has to devolve into this. But it got so out of control with Obama, with Biden. And that border was never secured. And they had these stats that I'm sorry, but they kept them differently than inconsistently. Let's just say with how the stats have been kept in the past.

And it's just not right. Anyway, time to move on to stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

We've got to kick things off. This cannot go without being talked about a little bit more. With all the news and everything going along, some of these stupid things get left off to the side. But, man, you have people in positions of power, prominent positions. This one, I go to FoxNews.com. This is the governor of Arizona, Katie Hopps.

Not necessarily routinely accused of being the smartest person in the room, but she took a... Here's the headline. Dem governor ripped as total disgrace after vetoing bill limiting Chinese land ownership near military bases. Now, this has been a big national story. The idea that the Chinese were going out and acquiring things that were close to military bases. I wonder why.

I wonder what would lead somebody to do that sort of thing. So in Arizona, they put together a bill. Well, the sub headline here says Governor Katie Hobbs, Democrat of Arizona, called the bill when she vetoed it. She vetoed this bill past the state legislature, calling it ineffective and said it could lead to arbitrary enforcement of land purchase restrictions.

That is just unbelievable today. The Arizona State Senate Majority Leader, Janae Champ, called the politically motivated veto utterly insane and blamed Haas for being an obstructionist against safeguarding our citizens from threats. However, Haas said the bill, Senate Bill 1109, was ineffective at counter espionage and did not directly protect American military bases in the state.

My goodness, can't you every once in a while stand up for America, stand up for Americans, stand up for making sure that... Why do we give all this preferential treatment to non-citizens and, in this case, Americans?

People with ties or direct involvement from adversary states like China. Sorry, folks. It's not saying if you're a Chinese American, you can't do it. But if you're using the entity and the money that comes from these foreign governments, maybe it shouldn't be buying land right next to a military base. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. All right. So congratulations, Katie Hopps. You have certainly made our list successful.

All right, going on to the next story. This just gets to be so frustrating, right? Because the allegation here is that a man made a... This comes from the Associated Press. A man made a false bomb threat

so he wouldn't miss a flight to Los Angeles. So evidently, he was going to get on a flight in Detroit, but was going to be a little bit late. So he thought if he called in a bomb threat, it would delay the Spirit Airlines flight, and then he would have time to make the flight. Now, this 23-year-old man, he was charged with maliciously giving false information about an explosive,

The phone call caused chaos at the airport. This is at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. And the FBI said passengers on the plane were removed, interviewed, and screened again. The flight didn't leave until six hours later. So, yes, the flight was delayed. Evidently, he was not on it. He got a nice interview. He screwed up untold number of people's lives and schedules and everything else. All because...

He was going to be late for the flight. That's the allegation. That's the initial story. We'll see where it all ends up. But, oh, my gosh. Talk about stupid. All right. Next one. New York Post. Great, great organization. They write some of the best, funniest, most provocative headlines out there. This one, it comes under the category of weird news.

But true, Walmart customer calls cops after his self-checkout avocado mishap charged $1,300. So a Walmart employee claimed a customer called the police after he, the customer, accidentally overcharged himself for avocados.

Then he accused the store of robbing him. Now, you know, these self-checkout things you've been, not everybody has the skill set to scan that, that, that code or type in how many they have, that kind of thing. But this was posted evidently up on Reddit, but you know, it's the pillar of everything that's true. But anyway, it caused quite a confrontation and,

And he came up with a bunch of stuff. Claimed that the item was on the shelf, was priced at $9.99. It was showing at the register at $19.99. Aye, aye, aye. Sigh.

Then he had the avocados. And guess he accidentally hit that he had 999 avocados instead of nine. Sounds like an innocent mistake. But, you know, his bill then jumped up to $1,300. And, of course, the customer called 911. Police had to show up, sort it all out, but...

Oh my gosh, do we really need to call the police when you type in 999? Sounds like something could have been solved. Maybe they're at the place just a little bit easier. That, folks, is the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Before we go on, before we go on with our interview, I just need to add one more.

And I got to go to Greta Thunberg. Greta, as you know, had this... There was this flotilla, okay? And the flotilla was headed towards Israel. And the idea was that they wanted to illuminate the problems and the challenges and everything that was going on with Israel and that they were the bad guys and they did this, that, and the other. So they had this, what is often...

some people have referred to as the selfie yacht. So you get these celebrities, people yearning for attention, everybody with their camera in hand ready to take their own selfie. I love the name they came up with this, which is the selfie yacht.

People taking all these pictures. Well, the Israeli Navy, they came in contact and they said, you know, we're just not going to do this because you are in international waters headed towards where they're coming to into a restricted area. Israelis are pretty good, pretty on top of this. But what I love about this story, first of all, it's totally stupid that they're in this flotilla area.

in what is essentially a war-torn area, no sensitivity to the gravity of the situation. You want to draw attention to it, but once they were evidently apprehended and brought back during their detention, they made them watch the videos of the attack from Gaza into Israel.

We're talking about the brutal deaths, rapes, killing, dismembering,

brutal. I have not seen the tapes. I have not seen, I've seen some of the videos, obviously not all of them, but they made these people sit and watch that. And to that, I give them an A plus good for them for showing them the reality of the terrorism that was caused by killing more than a thousand people, taking hostages and

and just causing all sorts of mayhem. And it was one of the worst terrorist efforts in the history of Israel and the world. It was just awful. It was just horrific. And the idea that they made Greta and these other people on the selfie yet watch it, I just love that. All right, that's The Stupid This Week.

Well, now sitting right in front of me is Joey Jones. Congratulations. You got another great winner of a book. I hope so. Thanks, man. It's a pleasure to come on here with you. Yeah, this book is... Did you think like when you were growing up, oh yeah, you know, I know I'm in English class here, but I'm going to be an author and I'm going to sell a lot of books. If you pulled...

30 English teachers that had me in my career, you'd get 30 out of 30 that said, no way. You'd get 30 out of 30 that said, this guy couldn't write a paper, much less a book. Now, it doesn't mean I wasn't a good storyteller.

But grammar, spelling, the details I miss completely, you know, and especially growing up in the South and speaking like it. I mean, this is 20 years removed of trying to fix my accent. So just think of how I would love to go back and read. Exactly. Exactly. You know, and so, look, I've done I'm about to launch my new book. You know, it's coming out in July 1st.

So I got a little ways to go. But the idea that I'm doing my fifth book is just like crazy. And the way you talk is so different the way you write. It is. I told a friend of mine this the other day that when you're in this business, because I do a lot of public speaking, it's like you have to have three voices together.

Yeah, no, no. You put your heart and soul in this, so...

You already had one smashing hit, right? Unbroken Bonds of Battle. But tell us about Behind the Badge. Like you could have written about a lot of things. Once you're a New York Times bestseller, you write or you could write about a lot of things. Why Behind the Badge? Because it's not about me. And neither was Unbroken Bonds of Battle, but they're both stories about.

of stories of people that have been extremely influential in my life. So, for example, Unbroken Bonds of Battle had several of the guys I went to war with along with other veterans that, you know, the guy that was beside me that died when I got blown up, his wife was in it. And each chapter kind of profiled these veterans and this gold star wife. Yeah.

Behind the badge is actually from that same group of friends. So I've got a guy named Justin Heflin in there that was a Marine Corps EOD tech. He got out and became an Indiana State Patrolman. I've got my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, Keith Dempsey. He's been a fireman for almost 30 years. He's in there. A guy that I grew up calling him Uncle Clay. I've known him my whole life since I was three years old. He's a fireman, paramedic. Now I'm on one call center, and he's in there. And the reason why I wrote the book is...

I was so humbled going on hunting trips and stuff like that with these guys and gals. There's a female in there that has an amazing story as well. But going on hunting trips with these guys and them explaining...

what their job was and what they're saying is their trauma and they don't know it. They don't realize it. And it's this idea that they don't ever leave their battlefield. When they take their kids to school, they drive through an intersection where they saw a kid, their kid's age pass away. When they take their family to dinner, they drive past an apartment building that they went there every month to save dad from overdosing until the month that they couldn't. And so it's not always tragic. Sometimes it's, there's a victory sometimes,

But their battles are in their hometown, on the streets and in the buildings that they live in. And that slow, steady trickle of trauma, as opposed to me going to war and coming back to a country that looks nothing like the two countries I went to war in, it's just a very different experience. But the after effect, the post-traumatic stress is very similar. Yeah, it takes a special kind of person, you know, when...

everything's just going along just fine. And then all of a sudden tragedy strikes and you've got a group of people who will step up into the fray, deal with the moment, do so calm, cool, and collective. And it could be everything. You know, we, I, I've told the story in the past where, you know, most dramatic thing in my life was on our son-in-law,

you know, jumped into our pool, hit his head and I had to jump in and pull him out with my daughter. And I, it's so hard, but you know, they dialed 9-1-1 and then fortunately they came running. They got there in a remarkably fast amount of time, but to do that day in and day out and deal with the

deal with it professionally and make sure that they didn't make the situation worse, that they made it better. I'm just forever grateful that there's people like that that will do that. I am so grateful after writing this book because in writing this book, I get to interview these folks and I read their stories. Then I respond to their stories and bring the things out of it that I see the themes or the points I wanted to make going into it. And honestly, I wrote the introduction to the book last because I didn't know...

I didn't feel right putting myself into this book. And then after reading all their stories and hearing all their stories and working with them, the introduction talks about the day my dad passed away. He came down. My grandmother passed away right before Thanksgiving. So they came down two weeks later to celebrate Thanksgiving.

And we got woken up on a Sunday morning. My mom's screaming. I kind of go back to my childhood from when they were arguing. I'm like, what in the world's happening? I jump in my wheelchair because I don't have my legs on at night. And I roll over to his room. And they're on the other side of the house. And he's laid out on the floor. And my sister got there just before me. She was down too. And she's doing chest compressions. So I relieve her. I start doing chest compressions. And then she starts doing mouth-to-mouth. And it seems like 911 got there as soon as we called them. They were firemen.

And ultimately, my dad passed away. But they kept his body functioning long enough to get him to the hospital and do the procedures they do. He had basically a heart attack and try to keep him alive.

And weeks later, the command, I don't know if he was a chief or what he was, but the fireman in command that night saw me at like a Chick-fil-A getting in my truck. And he came over. He's like, hey, I'm so-and-so. I was at your house that night. He's like, you know, when your dad was in trouble. I was like, oh, thank you. He goes, I'm just curious, you know, how'd that turn out? I said, well, he passed away. He said, man, I'm so sorry. And just to think like that was one of the worst days in my life.

And that was a random Sunday night for him. Right. You know, and like in like that was for all I know, he had three other calls just like that that night. Yeah, no, he'll do it the next Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. What is it? So when you talk to these people, you've been around them. I kind of put you in that category, somebody who would do and serve what they did in their country. You may not like that, but that's my version of it.

What is it about them that they gravitate to this and that they can do it? Now, I'm sure some people start and they got to stop because it's just too overwhelming. But what are the common denominators of somebody who's able to step up and serve like that? The common denominator in this book, because I've got a Border Patrol search and rescue agent in there, a main game warden who had an amazing career.

And in a place like Maine, game warden is really a misnomer. They do all the search and rescue and things like that. He had to use his weapon in the line of duty. They're usually out there by themselves. And so what the common denominator is, rather they come into it knowingly or not to stick with the job, and all of them in the book have, they eventually accept and appreciate the fact that the mission is more important than they are.

and that the service provided is so important and necessary. Somebody has to do it. It's going to be me. And I guess from that perspective, like going into EOD, I can understand that. That's how I felt going into taking bonds apart. The military can't make you do that. You have to volunteer to do it. And there was a lot of bravado. I was young. I was in my early 20s. And it was a special job that a lot of people respected. So I went into it in some ways because I wanted that opportunity.

from people and I wanted to say I do a job other people wouldn't do. But once it got real, then it quickly became about, you know what? Like somebody's got to do this. Why not let it be me? You know, and that's the common denominator with all of these nine individuals. You know, and I don't, it may not be a specific person in this book, but

Boy, those 911 operators, I am so impressed by, right? All hell's breaking loose. Somebody's in their worst moment. It could be a, I mean, think of all the things that are going on, but all of a sudden you're going from zero to 500 miles an hour and they got to coolly, calmly decipher what's going on. Get the proper people in place. If you've got a man with a gun, you know, running through a neighborhood, you got to be able to help direct traffic, right?

I just, and a lot of them, I would venture to say most of them, at least from my experience, are women.

And to have that calm, cool, collective approach is just unbelievable to me, like how good they are at their job. It's crazy. So in the book, I've got firemen, police officers and everything. I stuck with the jobs that are the easiest to understand as first responders. So I didn't do paramedic because a lot of firemen are paramedics. And I didn't have one close to me. These are all people that are close to me. But Clay Hedrick in the book, he's the first chapter. He was...

A duty fireman, which meant every 72 hours he worked a 24-hour shift. On his two days off, he was an EMT riding the ambulance. In some municipalities, those are different entities, and some they're the same. So in his time off, he rode the ambulance as an EMT.

And then he got divorced. He got custody of his sons, wanted to make a little bit more money on his third day off. He worked at the 911 call center. Oh, my gosh. And of those three jobs, being a fireman running into burning buildings, being an EMT scraping people up off the pavement, the 911 call center was the one that he just couldn't do anymore. He said, that's just that's a different type of job. He said, listen, the stress of it.

was absolutely unbearable. He's like, you're talking to people, you're having that one-on-one interaction with people while they're going through their worst moment. He said the other side of it too that was so difficult is once everybody got cell phones, if there's a wreck on the interstate, now you've got 50 calls for the same incident, but you have to treat all 50 of them like they're a different incident because you don't know until you get enough information. Right.

And so you can't dismiss any of them. So just that like air traffic controller amount of stress of I've got 50 calls to get to. There's not enough of us, you know, and it's just he said it was just too stressful. Well, and I can only imagine, you know, somebody's having a medical episode and they don't know what to do or they're trying to provide CPR. But maybe they haven't had a CPR class in, I don't know, eight years, you know, or somebody's choking and dying.

You don't have time to get somebody there. You got to talk them through that. That's like unbelievable. You're listening to Jason in the house. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Joey Jones right after this. You may get a little excited when you shop at Burlington. I'm saving so much.

Burlington saves you up to 60% off other retailers' prices every day. Will it be the low prices or the great brands? Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow. I told you so. Styles and selections vary by store. How do people who go through that, how do they deal with it? Like, I mean, these people, the people you're talking about, people behind the badge is the book. Behind the badge, they're going through this like,

It may only be weekly, but for a lot of these people is daily. It depends on what kind of

Some are rural situations. Some are inner city situations. How do they deal with this time after time after time? Well, there's a couple of aspects when it comes to our first response in this country that is uniquely American and also unique to every town. A sheriff's office in Texas is going to train completely differently than a sheriff's office in New York. Same thing with your fire service. So like a fire service in my town in Georgia, 78% of their calls are medical calls.

Now, there are some municipalities that have a different, completely different group of people that do just medical calls. But you don't have the budget for that with a smaller, even Dalton, Georgia, which is fairly big. I mean, you're talking 40,000 people in the city and over 100,000 that commute to it to work. So it's fairly big. But even there, all of your firefighters are EMTs.

So they all have, or at least they're medical trained. And so any medical call, they're the ones that get there first. They may call for an ambulance, but they get there first. They're the first ones to respond. And the other side of it is,

We're getting safer. Our buildings don't burn down as much. So you come into the job thinking you're going to swing an axe in a burning building, very, very masculine. And you end up, you know, getting somebody that's OD'd or getting somebody that's having a heart attack. And it's not always pretty. They see the worst things that happen to us and they see the worst things that we do to each other. Yeah.

And that's kind of, man, I get going through these stories in my head. I don't even remember the question you asked me. No, it's just like, how do they deal with it day to day and get past it? Because you do hear a lot about, and I don't know what the statistics are. My guess is they're not good, but divorce and alcoholism or that kind of stuff. Yeah. How do we...

How do you deal with that? And the answer is no magic answer. Yeah. The answer to your question is they're not dealing with it. And that's a problem. And that's why we wrote the book. That's what inspired me to write the book. I would take these veterans that are closest to me, some of which are in unbroken bonds of battle.

on a deer hunting trip because I couldn't get them to go to a retreat and I couldn't get them to sit down and talk about their feelings, but I could get them to go hunt. And when you go hunt, there's a lot of downtime by the fire. And, you know, I don't believe I don't drink and I don't believe that you self medicate, but you get a beer and somebody and they'll talk a little bit more.

And so I started bringing these first responders in, Keith and Clay, the two firemen that are like brothers to me. And then I brought in others, Tommy Worrell, a Baltimore County SWAT instructor now. And what would happen is these veterans and first responders would then have a one-on-one sidebar conversation, and they would be a lot more vulnerable to each other because –

If I'm a Marine, I'm not going to tell another Marine how I'm hurting because he already knows. But if it's a fireman, I've got so much respect for what he does that I don't mind sharing with him because I know he's seen some stuff I couldn't imagine and vice versa. And on the first responder side, we've put 20 years of marketing and PR and free millet on Veterans Day into being patriotic for our military. And the first responders have zero jealousy of that. They don't consider themselves patriotic.

in that realm or at that level to the point that they don't recognize it within their own ranks until it's too late. Some of the guys in the book, Clay Hedrick specifically, have made that the mission in their life of, hey, I had to get to a point where I recognized that I had PTSD or I wasn't going to make it.

What can I do to get other guys to talk about it? And so that is, it's this grassroots movement to where on the military side, it was a national led by the government and everyone else. Hey, veterans are coming back with post-traumatic stress. We should take care of them. On the first responder side, it's a grassroots movement. It's happened inside the firehouse, inside the precinct. It's happening on the SWAT team. Hey, we got to talk about this and tell them that John needs help or it's going to be too late. We're going to lose John.

And that it's such an amazing thing to, I didn't know this until I wrote this book. I didn't understand it this well.

No, it's interesting you said that because a few weeks ago, the Fraternal Order of Police had an event in Salt Lake City. It was the local Utah Fraternal Order of Police. But they also had some national folks that were in there as well. And they spent, I was impressed because they spent a significant amount of time talking about mental health and dealing with the trauma and things that happen on the job that you just cannot forget. And, you know,

You had an officer or two that went up there and kind of bore their soul and just talked about, you know, they had to go into one of the most horrific things they could ever imagine. You know, keep in mind, a lot of these things involve little kids. That's it. And that's so hard. The most vulnerable in our community are the ones that get hurt. Yeah. And how they get hurt is...

It's car crashes, it's domestic violence, and then it's worse. Predators and things like that. And they can go into a house where it's a domestic violence call and see the evidence of worse things happening. And they have no... They don't have...

Full authority. They can't arrest anyone. They call the cops. Cops come over. Somebody's got to press charges. There's technicalities to it. There's a great example of that from Steve Hennigan, who was LAPD. He was Marine Corps, LAPD and an LAPD bomb squad. And he gives a really good example of just, you know, you can't make somebody ask for help.

And and so what do you do? Justin Heflin in there gives a good example of he pulls his truck driver over. He's an older man. He's got a young girl in there that look this like barefooted in the sleeper part of his cab. Come to find out she's his stepdaughter and he's got her I.D. And there's all these reasons why Justin's like something isn't right here. This is a woman being trafficked and he got her alone and tried to talk to her and she was completely adamant there's nothing wrong.

And to this day, like he believes that was a nefarious situation, but out of fear or just believing that she should be in that situation, he couldn't get it from her and they can't make her do it. So just to think about like the time after time, I went to war twice. I've spent more than a year at war. I've seen friends get blown up. I've seen friends die. I've seen Marines that I didn't know well get blown up and die. I've seen the enemy get blown up and die.

Two instances that haunt me to this day are children getting hurt needlessly. One was their parents dipped them in boiling water because some witch doctor told them that's how you get the demons out. And it was a toddler that couldn't talk.

And then a nine-year-old little girl that fell out of a tree and onto an IED. And I had to go in and make sure there weren't other IEDs around before the family could come retrieve her body. And there's no way to make sense of that. Every adult in this world has lost their innocence.

So even if they're not guilty or bad, if they die in war or what have you, we've lived a life. When it's children that are completely innocent and haven't even had that opportunity to make a mistake and to see their life get in take away or to have them be mistreated, to do that for a living, I just couldn't do it. And that's why I wanted to write the book, because these are special people. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

The NBA playoffs are here, and I'm getting my bets in on FanDuel. Talk to me, Chuck GPT. What do you know? All sorts of interesting stuff. Even Charles Barkley's greatest fear. Hey, nobody needs to know that. New customers bet $5 to get 200 in bonus bets if you win. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

21 plus and present in Illinois. Must be first online real money wager. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus pass that expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. So the book is behind the badge. And yeah, and not to belabor this point, but when I was in Congress and we were doing all kinds of investigations and diving deeper into who does what and how, one of the things that I was just naive to, but not anymore, was,

Is that when you look at like child pornography, which is really, really disgusting, hard stuff. Most people don't realize that ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, has to deal with that. And because if it's coming from overseas and it's being sold or trafficked, that falls to ICE. The other one is the Secret Service. Mm-hmm.

And so I think you have people say, oh, I'm going to get involved in the Secret Service. Oh, I want to go protect the border. I want to get involved in, you know, helping out with, you know, immigration customs enforcement. But we have a lot of people, an untold number of people who end up having to deal with this. And I still don't think we have the proper solution to this because when I visited in one ICE office, they had a room and I was taking a tour and they said, you can't go in there.

And I said, why not? And he said, unfortunately, that's where we have to review like some really horrific stuff. Yeah. And if you see it, you can't unsee it. Yeah. And you don't want to see it. Yeah. I said, well, how do you guys deal with it? Because it was a small office. He said, people take shifts. They have to go in there for just a few hours and then they're done.

for the week and then they come back. But it's still, and I've talked to Trey Gowdy, you know, when you deal with prosecutors that have to go out and prosecute this stuff, he's like, yeah, I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't look at it because it stays ingrained. And somehow, some way, I don't know how we do it, but we got to figure out a way to

to take care of those people who are having to do that and figure out a way to be able to prosecute and determine these without tainting so many people. Because it's abnormal to think that you could go out, see that, look at it for a few hours, put together a case. I mean, you want to get these monsters off the street. You want to save these kids, protect these kids.

But, oh, that is a very tough part of this equation we haven't figured out yet as a country. It's that. Take that, what you're thinking, and then think about a local fireman that goes into the home of people on a domestic violence call.

Because in my opinion, it's one thing to see it on a computer screen. It's another thing to see it, smell it, be around it. Someone's been murdered. Someone's been raped. You know, a child's been abused and you're there to provide medical attention. Maybe the cops are there. Maybe they aren't. Maybe they're on their way. And what you want to do is you want to grab the nearest gun you can find and put the bullet in the head of the bad guy that's in front of you. And you've got to treat that person for their medical problems because they came in drunk and did this terrible thing and then hurt themselves.

And I don't know how they do it other than they go home and they look at their family. And you just got to tell yourself,

Man, I'm so lucky to have them and they're so lucky to have me. I think about it all the time. My heart breaks for my daughter sometimes because or when I'm with my daughter sometimes because I will never call myself a great dad, but I think I'm a good one. And I think about how many six year old little girls are out there that doesn't have a dad or worse has a bad one. And how can that even be?

And to think that your job is to know that and to experience that and be active in it and try to help people, you know, they're angels among us. They really are. Yeah, it's amazing because I think they, anyway, their heart's in the right place and they do want to do the right thing. And I don't know, it's a special breed. We don't pay these people that wear the badge, respond to the calls, that answer the 911s. We don't pay them enough. We don't thank them enough as a community person.

And the people I know, it's like you said earlier, they don't necessarily want or need the adulation, but they should get it. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I guess just to tie a bow on it, we've had this fight politically, back the blue, defund the police. This book is kind of an aside from that.

If you read this book, you're not worried about which side you're on. You get to learn who these people are, and then it's a no-brainer. They're bad apples of anything, but that does not negate the heroism and sacrifice of the profession, and these are non-outstanding examples of just that. So usually when you write a book, you start with the premise. You probably said you knew these people, but by the time you get to the end of it,

And now to the point that it's, you know, now just becoming available for sale, you've kind of learned something new that you didn't maybe necessarily know at point A. And now that you're at point B, what was that for you? We covered it, and I'm happy to reiterate it. I did not know how first responders were taking it upon themselves to engage their peers to say, let's talk this out. Let's go get help. It is such a grass – it's almost –

It's embarrassing and I'm ashamed of the fact that it has to be so grassroots, but you're talking about someone who has no training. He just was able to figure it out on his own talking to his buddy because he sees the signs in his buddy. And then your local fire chief says, hey, that's a good thing. We're all going to do that.

And they almost have to do it that way because there's so much of a stigma against the medical professionals to come in. Like if a shrink or a wizard, what we call them in the military, if they come in, they're going to be really guarded. They're only going to talk to other first responders. And so to know that, one, it's kind of negative. Hey, there should be something bigger going on.

But two, it sure is reassuring and it makes them even more heroic that they're taking it upon themselves and they're doing it at their shift level, at their department level, at their municipality level to take care of each other. Yeah, that's good. Behind the badge, Joey Jones. Well, it says Johnny Joey Jones. The more people call you Johnny, am I supposed to be calling you Johnny or Joe? No, my official name on the record books is Johnny Joseph.

I grew up as Joey. So when I got hurt, all my Marines called me Johnny and all my family called me Joey. So we just kept both of them so nobody would be confused. But friends call me Joey. All right. I was afraid you're going to say, but you can call me Mr. Jones. Staff Sergeant. No, never, never, never. Yeah. Listen, congratulations. I'm sure it's going to be a huge hit. Behind the badge, answering the call to serve on America's home front. Thanks so much for joining me. Thanks, brother. I appreciate you. Thank you.

All right. I can't thank Joey enough. This is going to be a great book. I look forward to reading it, hearing these stories. I always get inspired. You know what I get inspired by? I get inspired by ordinary Americans who do extraordinary things. And that's what this book sounds like. So I'm really excited about that. Hopeful that you can rate this podcast. That'd be helpful to me and to the show.

I would appreciate it and also want to encourage you and remind you that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Thanks again for listening to us. Love having Joey on and coming up. I've got my own book coming out. It's coming out July 1st.

And this one, boy, I spent nearly two years putting together. And you're going to love this one. This gets really, really deep into it. And I'm not revealing it yet. But tune in because before the end of the month, we're going to start talking about that one as well. Again, like the podcast, rate it, review it, subscribe to it, and join us again next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

As America prepares for its 249th birthday on July 4th, Fox News Podcast celebrates great Americans, highlighting well-known and everyday folks who've made their mark on the country in their own special way. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcasts.com.