In the spring of 2005, Jonathan “Jonny” Flores was a new father trying to make ends meet.
“I was working two jobs,” Flores, now 30, said. “Carpentry during the day and Boston Market at night.”
He hadn’t thought about joining the military until he was approached by a recruiter for the United States Marine Corps who asked him about a plan for his life.
This is it, Flores told him.
But curiosity tugged at the corners of his mind. A few days later, he walked into the recruiter’s office. He was redirected to the United States Army, and sent before a judge to clear his record.
“I wasn’t the best kid,” Flores said. “When I was 16, I thought I was getting jumped. It was late at night. I hit the guy, but it turned out he was an undercover cop.”
The judge, a United States Air Force Vietnam veteran, wiped Flores’ record clean in order to give him a fresh start. Then four years into the War on Terror, the judge’s reasoning was simple.
“He said that what I would be enduring over there would be more than any punishment here,” Flores said.
Soldiers, as he would learn, aren’t born.
They’re made.
Heroes Are Made
Flores officially enlisted in the Army on June 9, 2005 — the same day he got married to his longtime girlfriend, Wania. At 19, the couple had already been together for four years.
Four days later, Flores left for nine weeks of basic training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He was then stationed in Germany before his deployment in Iraq.
“In Germany, we did a lot of simulations,” Flores said. “We were constantly in the field, training. But there were rules we had to learn, too. We were going to be going into people’s backyards. We had to learn the culture and the signals. They don’t know us. The least we can do is be a little respectful.”
At 19, the Army helped him grow up fast. He learned selflessness, honor, duty, integrity. He learned how to become a warrior.
Everything else, Flores said, was left behind out of necessity.
“They strip you away so the only thing you have is the guy to the right and left of you,” he said. “You understand that you have a higher purpose than yourself. It’s not something you can ever change.”
He knew it in Baghdad, walking through homes and checkpoints with his fellow soldiers. Watching his hand movements, watching out for weapons. Feeling fear but not showing it.
“There’s dirt on the back of your neck,” he said. “You’re thinking, ‘Today is the day that I die.’ You feel it inside, but you don’t let it show. We’re guardians, we’re ambassadors of our community. We’re supposed to be strong. Soldiers aren’t born, they’re made.”
There was always fear. There was fear on July 4, 2007, when Flores was heading back from a house
assessment.
“One guy said, ‘I wish we could see fireworks,” Flores said. “I said, ‘I don’t want to see any.”
He didn’t hear the bomb go off.
“They say when you don’t hear it, that’s bad,” he said.
He was at an Iraqi checkpoint. As his Humvee turned, an improvised explosive device (IED) blew up in the ground beneath him.
“I was trying to see my hands and feet,” he said. “I could barely see the tips of my hands.”
He didn’t hear the bomb, but he could hear his breath, heavy in his chest.
He could hear his heart pumping.
He could hear his mind working, trying to make peace.
He thought of his wife and his son as the world around him started to blur.
“I was scared,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘God forgive me.”
Brother, You're Safe Now
The first thing Flores saw the next time he opened his eyes was light — bright, glaring, blinding. An
unfamiliar, beautiful woman stood above him. There was no pain.
“I thought it was Heaven,” he said. “I thought she was an angel.”
The sounds started coming in slowly, and then rushed, followed by small realities in quick succession:
Nurses.
Pain.
Shots.
And then, again, darkness.
The next time he opened his eyes, Flores was strapped down. He was in a helicopter, a pilot
standing over him.
Don’t worry, brother, the pilot said. You’re safe now.
He closed his eyes. Opened them. He was in a hospital now, a chaplain praying over him. He couldn’t feel anything.
Am I that bad? What happened to me?
He looked around. He was at an Army hospital, back in Germany. As doctors spoke, he took comfort in the familiarity of the trademark
camouflage.
His family had been contacted. His wife was there.
“I could see it in her eyes,” Flores said. “She was scared, relieved, everything. Every time I spoke, she would cry.”
The doctors began to speak to him, but there was more information than he could comprehend. He was bleeding into his sinus cavity. He had a traumatic brain injury and fractures in his pelvis, screws and plates where shrapnel had struck him.
There was a rod in his left femur, now. He’d lost the use of the toes in his left foot.
But he was alive. And July 4th — the birthday of the nation he’d fought valiantly for, his sister’s birthday, the day of the explosion — became his second chance day.
His Alive Day.
Finding Purpose
Following the attack, Flores was awarded the Purple Heart and returned home to Florida. He was officially retired in 2009 as a corporal.
“War is ugly,” he said. “And you have to come home and deal with that. I think a lot of us try to forget.”
He was back on his homeland, but Flores still had his warrior mentality.
“When I came home, I really lost myself,” he said.
Confined for a time to a wheelchair, he moved back in with his mother.
“She would hear me scream, she would hear me cry,” Flores said. “I think that’s what I needed. I needed to let it all out.”
Alone in his room, he stuffed blankets under the doors to block out light. He started drinking. Not to get drunk, he said, but to pass out. Just enough to black out and avoid dreams of far off lands, of Humvees and house
assessments and hand signals, of smoke clouds in his face and dirt on the back of his neck.
Passing out for three hours at a time, he’d wake up and listen to the sounds of his mother’s house, noises that kept him on edge, a soldier whose mind was still in a war zone.
In the middle of the night while the rest of the world slept, he rolled around in his chair, opening doors and peering through windows, checking every foreign sound.
“I was lost,” he said. “I was just lost. I just didn’t want to be around anybody. I think when we started to lose people, we went more into a state of rage. My best friend was in six combat tours. Being a warrior is all he knows how to be. He joined when he was 18, and it’s been 15 years now. It becomes part of your life.”
Eventually, Flores started to notice the impact he was having on his son, Jonathan.
“My son is the greatest kid,” Flores said. “When you have your child, your life changes where they’re the only thing that matters. They can’t live without you. This person relies on you. He was little, but I could see how much he hurt.”
Dad. I miss you.
In his son’s eyes, Flores could see the reason for it all: why he’d traded carpentry tools for Army boots, why he’d made so many sacrifices.
“The reason why I did all this is right here, and I’m still not here for him,” Flores said. “So I packed up and rented a house. I got a U-haul and my wife and son and I moved together. You either go all the way or you don’t do it at all.”
That was in 2012. From there, Flores said, the pieces started to come back together.
“I probably have brothers out there doing the same thing I was doing,” he said. “It’s not a way to live. There’s a way to live, and there’s a way to exist. A lot of those guys are just existing. These guys have so much to offer and they think they’re broken. I’m grateful for my wife. She never gave up on me, even when I gave up on myself.”
Flores began attending events for veterans, later becoming involved in organizations. Today, he is the West Coast Florida Event Coordinator for Wounded Vets, a group that hosts events for
veterans and focuses on outreach to veterans who returned home wounded or disabled.
“We go to (Tampa Bay) Rays and Lightning games,” Flores said. “I really believe in this organization. It gives me a sense of pride and honor just to be working alongside these guys. It humbles me. We’re bonded by blood. You bled, you felt it some way. You left a part of you over there and you’ll never be the same because of it.”
In addition to his work with Wounded Vets, Flores also serves as the Sgt. of Arms for the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Chapter 87, Tampa, as well as the New Dawn/OIF/OEF liaison for the Assisting Veterans of America Support Team (AVAST). The latter is focused on uniting the generations of younger and older veterans.
“A lot of those guys don’t understand each other, but there’s so many similar things,” he said. “All of the emotions are the exact same. We reach these guys and bring them in, we help them build relationships.”
On the first and third Thursdays of every month, Flores also assists a peer support group for veterans in downtown Tampa.
“We help them adapt to stressful situations,” he said. “I’m a peer support facilitator. I believe in it a lot. Some people believe in a religion, and it’s because you have faith in it. For me, I believe in this. They were there. They put themselves there and they shed blood for something they believe in, something more meaningful than themselves.”
It’s living, he said, and not existing — living for the ones who didn’t get a second chance.
“Maybe this is why I didn’t die on July 4th,” Flores said. “Maybe this is why I was spared. I think that
everything that happened to me was supposed to happen. I was supposed to break down completely and rebuild myself. Soldiers are not born.”
They are made.
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.