ABOVE Coach Jones's brother Barry was killed by a sniper while
serving in Vietnam. The Lyons VFW is named in his honor.
He went to Florence State College, named the
University of North Alabama today, on a football
scholarship. While there, Barry also joined the
ROTC. After graduating with a degree in Health and
Physical Education, he chose to join the Army. After
only two years, he was promoted to Captain.
At the end of his two-year enlistment, Barry
came home to see his family. “I was an assistant
football coach at that time,” said Coach Jones.
“We were open that week, so he rode over to
Hawkinsville with me to scout that Friday night. On
the way there, Barry told me that if he reenlisted he
knew he would be going to Vietnam, and it was what
he wanted to do. I tried my best to talk him out of it,
but he had already made up his mind. He said he was
going to make a career of it. I had no doubt he was a
great soldier. He had quickly climbed up the ladder
of command and was highly respected by all his men
and commanders,” something Jacky would later
hear again and again. “I said, ‘Barry, you need to go
ahead and get out. Start coaching.’ He told me, ‘In a
way, I’m coaching now. And if I get out, I’d be letting
them down.’”
On February 5, 1968, Barry was in the Binh
Dinh province of South Vietnam serving as Infantry
Unit Commander of the 11th Light Infantry
Brigade, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, D Company.
“D Company had been operating in the mountains in
an area southwest of Duc Pho for about a month…”
wrote his platoon leader Jerry Swenson to Barry’s
nephew Cam many years later. “Barry received
orders to send out a platoon size force to patrol a
village about 2 kilometers from the fire base.”
He had just called his Lieutenant to report that
one sniper had been killed and turned to return
the hand set back to the radio telephone operator
when he was hit by a second sniper. “A helicopter
was there within ten minutes to airlift him out, but
his spleen was all shot up, and he went into shock.
He died in the helicopter on the way to the base
hospital,” said Coach Jones.
When two men, one a local pastor in the
community, showed up at Coach Jones’s door, he
already knew Barry was gone. “They told me, ‘Barry
has been reported missing.’ That was all they had
been told. But a close friend of Barry’s wife Martha
had called. Word had gotten around among the
wives of men on the base in Hawaii that Barry
had been killed. The friend asked if I could come
get Martha and bring her home, because she was
expecting at the time.” Martha would name her
daughter Barri after her father.
The knowledge that Barry had chosen to serve
his country somehow helped Coach Jones bear the
loss of his twenty-six-year-old brother. The VFW
(Veterans of Foreign Wars) Ladies Auxiliary post
of Lyons is named J. Barry Jones Post #3563 in his
honor.
REMEMBERING TO
HONOR...
T he influence of teachers on the lives of our
youth cannot be overstated. In an age when
connection has all but been replaced by cell
phones and other electronic devices, teachers may
very well be our greatest hope for positive influence
outside the home. “If kids come to us from strong,
healthy, functioning families,” writes international
bestselling author Barbara Colorose, “it makes our
job easier. If they do not come to us from strong,
healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more
important.”
Some might have thought the Coach and the
English teacher were opposites. But the only real
difference between the two was where they taught.
As the 20th century American Psychiatrist Karl
Menninger stated, “What the teacher is, is more
important than what he teaches.” And who Coach
Jones and Ms. Betty were to their students was a
more valuable lesson than any lesson either could
have taught.
18 TOOMBS COUNTY MAGAZINE