- March 2, 2025
Palm Coast resident Billy Jones does presentations about the military at local schools, but it was at an athletic event at University of Florida, he said, when he realized the impact he was making.
Jones, 79, was officiating at a track meet when one of the runners came up and said hello to him. He didn’t recognize the youth, and asked how he knew him.
“He said, ‘You spoke to my class in the eighth grade,’” Jones said. That had been five years earlier.
Jones retired from a 22-year career as an Army aviator decades ago, but he’s now busier than ever, he said, teaching Flagler County’s children about the military and Veterans Day.
He writes his appointments at various schools in a little maroon agenda book, and the pages are covered with red ink: Matanzas, Indian Trails, Flagler Palm Coast.
Jones began the presentations about 10 years ago with a few other veterans, under the auspices of the Flagler County Veterans Services department.
But those early presentations didn’t go so well, he said. They were in big auditoriums with dozens or hundreds of kids, and he didn’t feel like he was reaching them. There were blank stares. There was whispering from the peanut gallery in the back.
He thought, "These kids aren’t getting anything out of this. Why don’t we try a different approach?” So they downsized, going to individual classrooms where they could speak with smaller groups and interact more with students.
With the new approach, he said, “We were very effective. We talked to principals and teachers about it, and they liked it.”
His schedule started filling up. Last year, Jones and five other veterans did 161 presentations in local schools, mostly in the two months or so before Veterans Day. So far this year, they’ve done 115.
Much of the content of the presentations, especially for the younger kids, is fairly simple.
Jones teaches them to respect the flag to respect the veterans who fought for it. He teaches them about the history of Veterans Day, and how it began as Armistice Day after World War I. He tells them to thank veterans for their service. He teaches them that freedom isn’t free. “Freedom is paid for in two ways, with taxes and with lives,” he tells them.
He ends on a lighter note, usually with one of the 20 or so magic tricks he has taught himself.
“I entertain as well as educate,” he said.
Big Change
Teaching kids — often squirrely little ones — is a big change from Jones’ military career as an Army aviator.
Jones joined the army after ROTC at Louisiana State University, where he studied architecture.
In the army, he went to school again — this time to learn how to fly.
“I’ve flown just about everything the Army had,” he said. “I love flying. That’s what I miss more about the military than anything.”
Jones flew both fixed-wing and helicopters and tested Blackhawks and Apaches. Twice, he guided helicopters to the ground after they caught on fire.
He served in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, and did two tours of duty in Vietnam as an aviator and maintenance officer.
Jones hadn’t planned to make a career of the military, he said. It just kind of happened after he had attended military training programs and racked up years of obligation to pay them off.
He didn’t mind, though. He got to see the world.
And since he retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel, Jones has continued seeing it, adding Greece, Turkey, Scotland, Finland, a number of South American countries and Puerto Rico to his been-there-done-that list, and racking up more than 227,500 miles on a motorcycle trip that took him to every state in the continental U.S.
He also finally used his architectural skills, designing the home he owns near the Grand Reserve Golf Club.
And he stays busy, working with local and national veterans organizations, volunteering for the Sheriff’s Office, and serving as a poll worker during elections.
But in the months before Veterans Day, he sets things aside for a hectic schedule of teaching. He’ll do it as long as he’s healthy enough to continue, he said.
Jones, who grew up poor on his grandparents’ farm in rural Arkansas and never forgot the people who helped him excel in high school and get a full track scholarship to LSU, said that by teaching kids, he’s giving back.
And sometimes, when he gets a thank you card from a child who enjoyed his presentation, he knows the work pays off.
“My personal thanks is that they learn something, that they remember something,” he said. “I appreciate what people used to do for me, and now I’m turning it around.”
This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Jones' school presentations are under the auspices of the Flagler County Veterans Services department.
