Behind the Badge

Johnny Joey Jones, a Marine veteran and double amputee, profiles nine first responders he knows personally to reveal the hidden emotional and physical costs of emergency and law enforcement service. The book is organized into three parts.

Jones opens by framing a national divide between "Back the Blue" supporters and "defund the police" advocates, arguing that most Americans lack a genuine understanding of first responders. He recounts his involvement with Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protest—Kaepernick was then the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers—describing how Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret (Army Special Forces), brokered a meeting that led Kaepernick to kneel rather than sit, and how Jones felt exploited when Kaepernick later wore socks depicting police as pigs. Jones introduces two brothers-in-law, both fire department chief officers, whose stories revealed the emotional burden first responders carry. He shares his father's death in 2019, during which he performed CPR alongside his sister before firefighters arrived. Weeks later, a fire department commander approached to ask how his father had fared, demonstrating that first responders carry such calls long after shifts end.

The first part profiles three individuals. Clay Headrick, a firefighter and paramedic with the Dalton Fire Department in Georgia, describes how a traumatic early-career call involving a child struck by a truck nearly caused him to quit. Over 28 years, the cumulative toll produced chronic insomnia, nightmares, and hypervigilance. Headrick reached a breaking point and told his physician that if life consisted only of this suffering, he did not want to continue. Medication stabilized him, and he began sharing his struggles with newer firefighters, telling recruits he would rather receive a midnight phone call than attend their funeral.

Keith Dempsey, Jones's brother-in-law and a training officer at the same department, grew up believing he was expected to enter his father's successful business. After volunteering as a firefighter at Dalton State College and earning a degree in economics and finance at the University of Georgia, he confessed to his father that he wanted to be a fireman. His father replied that he had known for five years. Dempsey explains that structural fires have decreased due to improved building codes, so most calls are now medical emergencies. He compares military and first-responder trauma, noting that soldiers experience acute trauma during deployments while firefighters endure chronic exposure over decades. He recounts devastating calls, including a dwelling fire in which two preschool-aged girls died hidden among stuffed animals.

Jeremy Judd, a Maine game warden for 21 years, traces his vocation to a childhood encounter with a warden who taught him to distinguish between two species of grouse. Game wardens are full law enforcement officers who patrol remote wilderness alone. Judd spent years on the dive team recovering bodies, learning to reframe each search as looking for an object rather than a person. After a near-fatal episode of hypothermia during a river dive, he partnered with Tundra, a black Labrador retriever, in the canine unit. Together they found 22 individuals. Judd also recounts a 2011 incident in which he shot and killed a suicidal police officer who pointed a gun at him after being found in the woods, the first lethal-force fatality by a Maine game warden. The accumulated stress eventually led to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The second part examines how first responders process trauma. Katelyn Kotfila, a deputy with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Florida, grew up in a multigenerational law enforcement family. Her path was catalyzed by the death of her older brother, Deputy John Robert Kotfila, killed in 2016 when he placed his vehicle between a wrong-way drunk driver and another motorist on a Florida expressway. Inspired by a ride-along with his colleagues, she joined the same office to continue his legacy. She later lost her best friend and fellow deputy, Abby, who was shot and killed by Abby's detective boyfriend, who then killed himself.

Tommy Wehrle, a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) sniper with the Harford County Sheriff's Office in Maryland, recounts the 2016 "Panera Bread Incident," in which Deputy Patrick Dailey was shot and killed within nine seconds of approaching a fugitive. Wehrle and a teammate fired 33 rounds in under 3.5 seconds, killing the suspect, but a second deputy also died. Wehrle describes his "trash compactor theory" of psychological coping: First responders keep cramming traumatic experiences down until the compactor overflows. He also recounts a 2022 hostage situation in which miscommunication between jurisdictions allowed a rogue officer who had kidnapped his own children to flee, ultimately killing the children, his girlfriend, and himself.

Justin Heflin, a sergeant with the Indiana State Police and a fellow Marine explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technician, describes his father Bobby Heflin's trajectory from Marine to small-town police officer. Bobby worked simultaneous jobs, taking ephedrine, a stimulant, to stay awake. When he exceeded legal purchase limits, he was criminally charged and lost his police career, and the resulting shame led to an alcohol addiction. After serving two combat deployments to Afghanistan, Heflin joined the state police in 2014. During a night patrol, he learned that a pedestrian crash had killed his own father, who was struck by a car while riding a bicycle at age 50. Still in uniform, Heflin performed the death notification to his mother and extended family.

The third part focuses on judgment and leadership. Vincent Vargas, an Army Ranger veteran, joined the US Border Patrol in 2009 and was accepted into the Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit (BORSTAR). He describes the shift from military service, where he was trained to kill high-value targets, to border work, where his mission was saving lives. The terrain triggered combat flashbacks, and he came close to engaging someone incorrectly. Combined with a second divorce and reliance on alcohol as a coping mechanism, these pressures led him to leave after seven years. He now pursues a master's degree in psychology, with plans for a PhD, and runs a nonprofit called Beterans focused on veteran wellness.

Steve Hennigan, who retired from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) after 35 and a half years, traces his calling to a 1973 encounter when two officers threw him a football as a third grader. After serving in the Marines, he joined the LAPD, guided by his father's principle: "Treat people how you want to be treated" (221). He describes an older Black woman who shot and killed her husband after enduring 40 years of beatings. Hennigan treated her with such respect throughout the arrest that she later sent a thank-you card and cake to the station. In his career, he used force approximately four times and never fired his weapon outside of the range, a record he attributes to treating people with respect until they gave him reason not to.

Mark Lamb, Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, entered law enforcement at age 34 after business failures left him living with his wife and five children in his mother's condominium. He helped build a federal case against a reservation gang, reducing annual drive-by shootings from 76 in 2009 to zero in 2011. After winning the 2016 sheriff's election, he established programs including youth redirection for juvenile offenders, jail tattoo removal, and adult reentry initiatives. He frames the sheriff's constitutional role as a check on government overreach.

Jones closes by listing recent tragedies, including the 2023 Covenant School shooting, Hurricane Helene, and the January 2025 terrorist attack in New Orleans, as examples of heroism and trauma the public often overlooks. He asks readers to acknowledge what first responders feel running toward such disasters to save the lives of strangers.