beginning at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span. next, q&a. then british prime minister david cameron at the house of commons. after that, republican presidential candidates rick perry talks about his state. and >> after that, rick perry talks about his faith, then michele bachmann is in california. >> tonight, on c-span, q&a with ivan kander and rob jones, a marine corporal severely injured in afghanistan.

>> this week, ivan kander and rob jones discuss theirlive. "the rob jones story." >> why did you do a documentary on your injured buddy from high school? >> it came from a natural, a natural place, when rob first got back bethesda, he kept saying, things were happening so fast, he was going in and out of surgery every day and from that idea wanting to remember, that natural inclination to make it from there, i've always been working in video and we've been making movies together since we were young so it felt like the natural, right thing to do. even if it didn't turn out to be a documentary or a finished product, he could remember that time of his life and it stemmed from there. >> rob jones, why did you let your buddy do this documentary? >> i thought it would be a good opportunity to let people see the process of recovering from something like that because i had never seen anything available that covered that topic.

>> when did you start it? >> i believe we started filming, actual footage, maybe two or three weeks after rob got back to the states. and then we actually physically started doing on-camera interviews a couple of months after that, when he was actually not going into surgery every day and it wasn't as hectic a recovery process. >> what are the extent of your injuries? >> i have a left knee disarticulation, and an amputation. >> is that it now? >> that's all. >> that's all. >> yeah, that's enough. how many different operations did you have to have to get to where you are today? >> i don't remember the exact number but it was pretty much every other day for two or three weeks, and then one more, and then i had two surgeries where they replaced my eardrums, that had gotten ruptured. >> you are a graduate of virginia tech university? >> correct.

>> at what point in your university time did you go into the marine corps and why did you go and enlist? >> i went and enlisted? my original plan was to join the reserves after my junior year, finish college, and then go to o.c.s. but then i just decided to go to iraq instead, and i kind of liked being enlisted, and then i got back from iraq and went straight to afghanistan. >> we're going to run the entire documentary in this hour program. it's about 25 minutes plus the credits on the end. how did you shoot it, and how many hours did you shoot? >> i obviously have a lot more footage than i ended up using. i think i have probably 15 to 20 hours of footage that was boiled down to 24 minutes. i knew i had to keep it relatively brief and i have never made a short movie over 15 minutes so it was my goal not to do anything too long and keep the story concise. as an editor, i like to keep things in a very coherent package. >> what is the title?

>> the title is "survive. recover. live." that's straight from rob. i felt like it was a couple of weeks after you got back to bethesda. very soon after being injured. it gave his philosophy and that's your title. >> what did you think of the title? 11 minutes is the survive part of this and we'll run the whole 11 minutes and we'll come back and have you guys fill in the blanks. >> how are you doing today?

>> i'm doing very well. >> all right. we have an exciting match-up today between rob and i, and it's going to be a hell razor. >> okay. let's pause this right now. this is a story about my friend rob. that's me and him in high school. you see, i'm the cliche, nerdy kid who watched jurassic park too many times and with my shady camera work, rob was there every time supporting me. like i said, this story isn't about me. it's about him. >> once we graduated, i figured that we would be famous making amazing films for all to see. we would be unstoppable. >> times changed. \[applause/]

>> how are you doing? it's great to be here tonight. >> he just had a great character about him. a great personality. rob was one those guys that just stood out to all of us. just an explosive personality. >> he's goofy. he's outgoing, i have never met anybody quite as outgoing as him. he's got these quirks about him, that are very consistent. >> everything had 100%. >> he brought like a charisma to the unit. he was always up at 8:00 ap. never missed breakfast. everyone was dead tired and he never missed breakfast. >> down to earth. >> like a group of people, everybody looks towards him for the fun of the party.

>> he's always working out and always like pushing everybody that he's around. to be better. >> he never got mad, never got pissed. always volunteered to do stuff. everybody was like where do you get this energy and optimism from. >> recently had some elections, the republicans took back the house of representatives. but we're still seeing a lot of election stickers around even though the election is over. the stickers seem to stick around for a long time. i could have sworn the other day i saw vote washington 1776. [laughter] >> july 22 of 2010, we were in afghanistan, in the hellmand providence. i was with the squad and basically clearing a path for them, and i stepped on, or i got

hit by an i.e.d. i'm not sure what kind it was. >> the first thing, you hear the boom, see the flash and the next thing you hear is him cry out in pain. the second thing i heard, you know, if i've lost anything special, you know, shoot me. and then the guys tell him, he hasn't lost his private parts, and then, bam, he's good. >> i was pretty much right on top of it. and it took my left leg and my right leg. >> i collected his leg and i thought he had lost a whole lot more because when i picked up his leg, you know, in my mind's

eye, i'm seeing his knee down, and, of course, i probably was looking at the upper shin down. >> sometimes i feel like i probably should have seen it, or sometimes i feel like maybe i rushed myself, and i should have seen, you know, an indicator or something. >> he was coherent. he had morphine in his system. >> the company commander came up to us and told us that two of our guys had gotten hit. one of them's name was jones, and then we came to find out later that the other one's name was jones and we didn't know which was hit and how bad either of them were. we heard pretty bad stories. >> the reports came back that jones was a double amputee, which usually, you know, is assumed to be legs. and then it was reported that jones was a triple amputee, and

then there was a lot of mix up because there were two jones from the same unit. >> we were waiting to cross a river. they called for seven volunteers to go out there. i was one of the ones that went out there. we were setting up a tree line and just to keep eyes on. that's when i got hit. >> we thought it was a mortar that they were shooting at us. so we just started walking back quicker. right as we got to about 25 meters from our truck they started pulling stretchers out. >> i haven't gone through the necessary paperwork to find out the details, but i got blown up and that's all i really need to know, i guess. >> i didn't even recognize him at first, with the mud and dirt, blood all over his face. i wasn't until like five or 10 minutes later that we realized it was dan. >> rob and daniel are both athletic and into working out like jim jones. >> they would both go to jim together so they would call themselves jim jones. i mean, grueling work-outs. >> i met them and it was kind of like a package deal. >> very good friends. inseparable at times. >> if you're getting made fun of by one of them they just sit there and feed off of each other and just escalate it. escalate it. >> one thing about both, is they are both always reading books, always interested in learning new things. that's outside of scope of stuff that they are used to. >> when we were in i.c.u., we were almost across the hall from each other. that's when it hit me that he had actually been hurt.

>> i'm still down here if intensive care. just wanted to say high. love you, miss you, i can't wait to get up to the fifth floor and hang out. good times. we'll work on a workout plan. take care and i'll see you soon. bye. >> closer. >> i don't have a good voice. >> he can hear you. hey, man, first things first, we've got to design a workout program to get on our feet again. and then, we'll have a really good time up here. i can't wait to see you. and i'm thinking about you. >> if there is any good that came out of it, it was the fact that, you know, yeah, it was nice to have someone there, you know, that was going through something like you were, so you could talk. i think it made me stronger because i had to be tougher because he was there. when he would come into my room, that always made me feel better.

>> there was recently a tornado unfortunately in the midwest, and actually, it ended up killing eight people. but luckily, the tornado was apprehended by police. and it was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences in the stratosphere with no chance of water vapor. it was a good ending to that story. >> i joined the marine corps in 2006 in my junior year of college and then went back and finished my last year because i was a reservist. >> my job was to find i.e.d.'s. our job was to find explosives. we were out there and we find some weapon caches and there are tons of stuff. we're digging up stuff all day. i'm exhausted, don't get any sleep that night.

a couple or third day goes by, and we're just like ton. i don't want to see a shovel. i don't want to pick up another 100-pound munition. i'm tired. i want to go home and gets some chow and water. dirty. i haven't showered. rob was the only one, no, let's keep looking, and he just, you know, everyone, you know, let's take a break. he was like grabbing the shovel, grabbing his rifle and gear, i'm going out looking for more. and he found more stuff. he always had that personality. just to keep driving, keep pushing, and such an optimistic way. he never got down about anything. he really kind of, you know, inspired the whole unit with his personality. >> he was the reason why i made it back. if there was anybody that was diligent and followed the procedures, went step by step, never sped it up, that was him. we still don't know exactly what it was that he had stepped on, but there is no doubt in my mind that it was one of the hardest i.e.d.'s that could be found if found at all. >> when i started to joining the military i didn't want to join anything but the marine corps. i was taken in by the camaraderie and pretty much everything that the marine corps

stood for. >> i guess i kind of always wanted to be a marine. i'm not exactly sure why. >> the main thing that attracted me to the marines was just the brotherhood. >> i wanted to join because i wanted to build up something and go fight, and there is a saying, you know, a true soldier doesn't fight for what he hates in front of him. but because of what he loves, that he left behind and you meet so many great guys and rob really personified that more than anyone i have ever known. >> the people i was over there with, you just become so close with them and every second of every day is with them. so you have no choice but to bond with them and get along, but then you come back here, and it's so much easier to have someone who has gone through the same type of things as you went through. >> i just felt like, as long as there was a marine somewhere fighting, that i should be over there with them, because i didn't join the marine corps to just stay in the states. i joined the marine corps to do the fighting.

i really like the aspects of the brotherhood of the marine corps. >> that's been prominent, the friend ships that i have made in the marine course with other marines, i can always depend on them and they can depend on me. i would hop out of this wheelchair in a second if i had to for a buddy, if they got into a fight or something. i don't know how i would do it, but somehow, i'm really close to the people that i went to iraq with, because we went through all of these different experiences together. >> that's also what corporal jones showed me, we were the family and we were continuing all of this. >> we got the phone calls from our friends saying, hey, we've got some bad news. rob got hurt. we all took off work, drove down to bethesda. we met up with his family. immediately, though, you know, even though he was drugged up on morphine, kind of out of it, you could still see he had the same personality. he was still joking around. >> for being as drugged up as he was, he was still jones. >> that was kind of the first time we thought to ourselves, thank god he's all right, still the same guy.

>> where were you when you first heard that rob jones had been injured? >> i was right here, i live in silver spring and i received a call from a friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours to let me know that rob was injured. and the bad thing about that call is, obviously, i was very sad to hear that my friend was injured, but at the same time, it was almost a sense of relief that he was still alive because that was one thing that was very clear about that interaction, was that he was still alive, injured but still alive. i was very happy to hear that. >> when did you play this documentary for your students and friends in loudoun county, which is right out here in the suburbs? >> we played it on the one-year anniversary of when i was wounded, july 22 of this year. >> and what was the crowd like and what was your reaction to having to go through that in

public? >> the crowd was primarily people that i knew, but there were a lot of people that i didn't -- i had never met before. they were very supportive. then when i came in, they clapped for me and everything. the mayor of the town gave me a plaque that said they made that rob jones day. i got a quilt. and i don't know, i have never been shy about doing things in public so it didn't really bother me. >> when did you two first meet? >> it's hard to say exactly when we first met. i believe it was in middle school, right? >> eighth grade. >> because around eighth grade they start pairing you by last names. he was always the last j in the alphabet and i was always the first k in the alphabet, so we always had to start the day together and from then on we just became really good friends, so it was definitely in middle school. >> how much did it cost to you make this? >> pretty much nothing. because i already own my own equipment anyway. and anything that i had to rent, my employer was very good to

let me take it free of charge. >> where are you working now? >> i work for -- hamilton, the consulting company. >> where did you agree to go along and do this in the first place? what do you want to accomplish with this being public? >> the show? >> not this show but your whole -- >> the documentary? >> yeah. >> i just wanted people to see what people go through after they are wounded. in afghanistan. and, you know, if i happen to inspire anybody by doing the documentary, just to try as hard as they can to recover as well as i have, then that's a bonus. >> let's go over the details again on your service. when did you go into the marine corps?

what was the first day? >> my first day at boot camp was may 17th of 2006. >> how long did you serve? >> technically i'm still in. waiting for my medical board to finish but it's been about five years and some change. >> you went to iraq. you were there six or seven months? >> seven months, and we went from january of 2008 to august of 2008. >> and you were a corporal? >> for the iraq deployment i was a lance corporal, and for the afghanistan deployment i was a lance corporal. >> what does that mean for those who have never been in the service, where does that fit? >> just a rank. there are nine enlisted ranks that you can be. lance corporal is the third one. corporal is the fourth one. >> what was your assignment in iraq? >> in iraq, i was just a team member. a member of a fire team, four people. and we supported an infantry unit. >> how close did you come in iraq to being wounded or stepping on an i.e.d. or getting some kind of a combat situation?

>> there wasn't really a whole lot going on in the part of iraq that we were in. i guess the most dangerous thing i did was handle munitions that had been buried in the ground. they could have been booby trapped but we didn't have any reason to believe that they were. i think there was one i.e.d. hit that ended in casualties in the battalion. it was only one time that i was around any shooting.

>> how hard was to it find all of those fellows that i talked to? >> luckily, i got rob to coordinate everything for me in the sense that these are good friends of his so they were willing to come out and support him and getting them together became a process of him just giving them a call and saying, we need to get you down here and get you on camera. >> how many are still in service? >> i believe most of them are. i know will isn't anymore. >> -- wasn't. everybody else is. >> so maybe two of the people are no longer. >> i noticed when you shot the other jones, dan jones, that we only saw his head, we didn't see what he had lost. what did he lose? >> that's the interesting thing about the whole thing and i probably should have shown this in the film itself. he ended up not losing any limbs. he was believed to be a triple amputee at the first report and that's why there was so much confusion and then it came out he still has all of his limbs. he has limited mobility in one of his legs, i believe his arm but he still has all his limbs and the reason why he was wearing sunglasses, i think he was just shy. >> it was bright that day. >> yeah. >> what's been the toughest part for you? not the documentary but the injury and recovery? >> probably the hardest part is probably having to let people help me do stuff.

>> you say that in the documentary. >> yeah. >> why is that so hard? >> i don't know. i've always just been really independent and i like to do things myself. and having to let people like move boxes for me, you know, when i used to be able to do it myself, it's kind of hard to accept. but, i've started to get used to it at this point. >> had you ever thought about going into the service? >> no, i have never thought about it. my heart is in video. so that's what i want to do. >> when you go back, when you were at virginia tech, and you always, i think you alluded to this i always thought would you go into the service at some point, where does that come from in your life? >> i hadn't really thought about it until my sophomore year, really. i was -- i started as a

computer science major and i decided didn't really want to do that for a career so i kind of, you know, just brainstorming about stuff that i could do. and a friend of mine had just joined. so i kind of started reading books about the marine corps to see what, you know, what he was getting himself into, you know. and i kind of liked what i was reading. so -- >> what is it, though, what is it about it that you like? >> mostly the brotherhood, like i said, in the documentary. it just seems like marines are just extra close to each other. and they always strive to be better and just be the best that they can, and just being around that kind of person brings the best out of me as well. >> i think there was only one officer that i saw in there. >> yeah. >> how many of the other enlisted marines had college

experience? >> let me think. pretty much all of them have some college experience. >> did y'all talk much about why they had gotten into the service also? >> not really. i think we all pretty much just kind of assumed we had generally the same reasons. >> and as you were shooting this, did you run into any problems with people saying you can't bring that camera in here? >> not a lot. there were a couple of instances, just when he was doing some recovery in physical therapy, just bringing a camera interest a public place, we ran into some issues there, but there was nothing crazy or difficult, especially because i think the topic of this documentary, a lot of people are open to allowing you to record for that kind of thing because, you know, it's such an interesting story and it's about

the betterment of this country. >> the next segment is called "recover." >> yes. >> what's this about? >> basically, self-explanatory. i wanted, based on rob's initial statements, each kind of represents a different stage in the process. recover, now that he's back, he's gone through the initial surgeries, how he's starting to develop, and get back to basically a routine or a schedule. >> before we run it, i don't see his parents. they don't talk in this? >> for a couple of reasons. one, when i asked to interview his parents, they asked me not to include them because it was too soon after the accident and she didn't think she would be appropriate to be on camera so i respected her wishes and didn't record her on camera. >> does he have other brothers and sisters? >> he does have a brother and a sister. his sister lives pretty far away so she's hard to get in touch with, and the brother didn't want to be on camera for similar reasons.

>> this is eight minutes and 34 seconds, second part of a three- part documentary. >> it was really bad at first. i couldn't sleep at all because i had nightmares constantly, whenever i closed my eyes. a normal person, when they close their eyes, it gets dark, but for me it would be like, it would be like i was watching a movie, and the movie was either some weird hallucination or some kind of a nightmare, for a split second, i would relive the blast and i could see my legs like splattered all over the ground. sometimes i would hallucinate really bad stuff, like i would be going out on patrol and i got shot, so the patrol is going out without me. and i was stuck back at the center. and another time i dreamed i got hit by a mortar and for some reason my mom was with me and it just really hurt and i could see like blood all over the place. so those were really the worst times. >> he was laying down in his bed. we were standing up around him, just trying to talk with him and he was in and out of it, really drugged out.

there were maybe like five guys here and he's telling us about what he's seeing and the morphine kind of making him, you know, visualize a couple of things. he's like, yeah, i am fighting off these aliens right now. they are just walking around and now they are zombies, and he looks up and he sees, he looks at me and my friends, he's like, oh, you guys are here, too. he's like, well, oh, you're falling through the ground. you guys are sinking through the mud and he's like, bye, guys, bye, good luck with that. then he's like, i just got back from japan. he still had a good sense of humor. >> i wanted to get a funny hat for my mom, because i thought that if i was wearing a funny hat the first time she saw me, it would take the edge off a little bit, you know. she would see my legs, and she would see the funny hat and she wouldn't be able to help but laugh and put herself in a good mood. but they weren't able to find

one. and when i got to bethesda, there is my mom with a pirate hat in her hand. so somehow, they found out that i asked for a funny hat and she brought me one. >> it's really hard to accept at first, but you know, you take what caused you to be like that and you realize, you know, it's kind of understandable, that, you know, you have to get so much help. ♪ ♪ >> so the first thing they did was close my left leg. i had some serious wounds to my rear-end, which were still open. they were really deep. so i would go into surgery pretty much every other day. they closed up all of my wounds, and then we waited five days to make sure the skin graft took, and then they would check the skin graft. they saw it was good. the next day i got transferred

to walter reed, because that's the place you go for prosthetics. you get these little things called stubbies, and they are about this tall, just straight bars, and you're on those for a while because, obviously, you're relearning how to walk, so you want to keep your center of gravity low. and then they heighten you a little bit and it's still the straight bar. they change the foot that's on it. they change it to a foot that flexes so it's like you have an ankle almost. and then after you have mastered that you graduate to the full height and you have a knee. the first type of leg you learn is the c leg, which is a computerized leg, and it has sensors for pressure, and then after you have mastered the c leg you get a mechanical leg which works on your own power. after that, you just come in until you're ready to get

discharged. there is a difference between phantom sensation, and there is phantom pain. phantom sensation is when you feel your limbs that aren't there anymore, and phantom pain is when they actually hurt. your brain is confused, like, it thinks that your limbs are still there, but they are not, and your synapses misfire and stuff, and that's why you feel it. you know how sometimes when you go to sleep and you accidentally go like this with your arm, it ends up flopping down and you can't feel it, it's like, imagine trying to move your fingers like that, you can, you know how sometimes when you go to sleep and you accidentallyends up flopping down and you can't feel it, it's like, imagine trying to move your fingers like that, you can, you can imagine that your arm is there, and your fingers are there and you're trying to move them but they won't move. >> he would have humor at all times. if a guy can laugh when his legs are blown off. there is something special about him. >> when he found out there was mountain dew in iraq -- he asked president obama to do the dew

with him. >> when we were out in the middle of nowhere, we didn't have a whole lot of food and stuff and everybody was getting sick. >> you couldn't go five minutes in the one compound without somebody -- without hearing -- >> rob hadn't gotten sick yet, but he was so proud that he hadn't puked yet. >> i didn't puke. i'm very proud of that fact. >> i hate having to have people take care of me and stuff. i like to be the one that's taking care of other people instead. >> it's a pleasure to meet you. >> it's a pleasure to meet you. >> what happened? >> i.e.d. >> i'm a combat engineer so it's my job to find them.

and i was looking for one at the time. and i found it, but i found it in the worst way possible. it blew up on me. >> i talked to my physical therapist and i told her the marine corps birthday is november 10th, and i want to be walking by then. and i told her i would do whatever i had to do. i would come down two or three times a day. i did whatever she said i had to do in order to be walk by november 10th. >> his goal was getting to the marine corps ball in november and being able to stand up and dance and do this whole scene where he goes up in a wheelchair, stand up. he talked about that every day and he did it. that was amazing to see. in such a short amount of time. >> there is like the therapy world which is where i am now, and there is the real world, and the therapy world is very flat

and everybody knows the plight that you're in, so they can kind of lend a hand when you need it. but then there is the real world where there is all sorts of hills that i have to go up and down, there isn't always a railing when i need one. i have to get a specially adapted car, that's become more obvious to me now versus before when i didn't have any kind of disability. [applause] -- >> believe it or not, my first thought on waking up to the blast, not worrying about dying, somehow i knew i would survive. instead, i pictured the rest of my life without legs and realized that i would have to give up some of the friends i had made and some of the things that i loved doing. somehow, despite all of this, i managed to maintain a positive attitude. and now that i've seen and heard about the amazing things that prosthetics can accomplish, i

know that i do not actually have to give up on those plans. thank you for having me here today. and i hope you have a wonderful veterans day. thank you. [applause] >> let's get serious. >> so a couple of quick questions. did he really have an audience when he was doing that humor? >> no, no, that's all a mock audience, yeah. >> did you script it or did he write it? >> tall jokes are totally rob's. the concept of shooting him in front of a fake audience was my idea but that's all rob, all that stuff. >> go back to afghanistan, where you were injured, wounded. july 22nd, 2010, you know, we're a little bit more than a year later. since then, how many days have you spent in the hospital? >> as an inpatient?

probably about two months total. >> what time of day were you -- did you step on the i.e.d.? >> i think it was early afternoon. i'm not positive, though, it was pretty hot, so i think it was early afternoon. >> had you had any friends there, that you had seen, that this had happened to before? >> nothing that serious. my friend, a couple of days before, got hit in the cheek by a piece of shrapnel, but he was fine. and other people got hit by i.e.d.'s while they were in trucks and they got shaken up a little bit but nobody had actually been wounded this badly. >> do i understand that you were looking for i.e.d.'s? >> yeah, i was looking for one. >> and how is it that you -- i mean what kind of devices do you use to avoid them and how is it that you hit this one? >> when you're on foot, you use

intuition and eyeballs and i also have a metal detector. what happened on that day is somebody had stepped on a separate one because they like to plant them next to each other. his didn't go off. i think it just hit the -- the blasting cap went off and it's like a firecracker almost. so that let us know that that was an area where we were in danger. but it wasn't one of the classic areas where would you expect to see an i.e.d. because we weren't being funneled by any terrain or we weren't being funneled by anything. so i think it was just some kind of a random placement. they would get lucky and hit somebody. >> what's the first thing they do when you're injured like

that? what -- talking about the morphine and all of that. when do they give you that morphine? >> the first thing they need to be concerned with is making sure that the path from me to them is clear of i.e.d.'s, and any other kind of danger because they don't want people to keep running up to me and stepping on more and more because that's what the taliban likes to do because they know we'll run over there, so they plant one here and this person gets hit and plant another one here so the people coming to help get hit, too. so the first thing they do is make sure that that's clear. and then, i mean, once -- the only people who have morphine are the core men, so once he got there he hit me in the leg with some morphine. >> from that moment until you got back to the naval hospital, where did you go? >> i think the first i went to camp leatherneck, afghanistan, and from there, i went to

germany, and then from germany i went to bethesda. >> how has your friend changed since all of this happened? >> i think the most amazing thing is the fact that he hasn't changed. personality-wise, you hear so much about post-traumatic stress disorder and not being the same person, but rob is the same person i've known since middle school which is fantastic. at the end of all of think still have my friend which is the most important thing to me. >> what have you noticed about your other friends' reaction around jones? >> i think that rob, once you meet him, he breaks the ice very quickly. so it's very easy to forget that

he looks any different or has to move any differently. and a lot of our friends are still joint friends so it's not a big difference, if we hang out again. it will be the same camaraderie. >> when you started out to do your documentary, did you have a script? >> the only thing i scripted really was the opening and closing voiceover and that didn't happen until i had some footage to go with. at first i was just shooting random stuff and i let the story develop from there. >> what was your reason for doing this? >> really, it was just kind of, i felt like it was something that i should do, and i say that in the sense that, here is my friend, who was presenting a very compelling story, and as a storyteller my entire life it would feel wrong not to tell that story. >> do you personally have any attitude about this war? >> the one thing i was intent about this documentary is to not make it about anything political or the war whatsoever. i fell like there are amazing documentaries that cover that very topic and i don't think a personal story about my friend would hold the same weight as those so my goal is strictly to keep it about rob. >> now, your still in the service. and you're waiting -- do you have a job? >> my job right now is to recover. >> did you do your internship -- i don't remember whether we talked about it in this with the f.b.i. yet? >> i have been going in for six

weeks, i think, something in there. i go in on fridays right now, because i'm still going into physical therapy for most of my time. >> and what are you waiting for between now and whenever -- are you going to leave the marine corps? >> yeah, i'm probably going to retire, but right now, i'm just waiting for the physical evaluation board to deliver my percentage disability and then i'll sign some more paperwork and that will be it. >> what's your overall feeling about the treatment you've gotten? >> the treatment i've gotten has been topnotch. from the very first day. the surgeons taking care of me there. the nurses were great. and then the physical therapy has been unbelievable, and the prosthetics care that i've gotten, it's been all just so good. i can't say enough good things about it. >> do you have other prosthetics besides what you're wearing today?

>> yeah. i have legs that i use to ride a bike. i have legs that i use to walk around in my room. they are short. i have legs that i'm going to try and use for rowing. i have running legs, and then i have a couple of other sets of knees that i have tried before. >> and have you gotten used to this? >> yeah. pretty much, probably about as much as you can. >> and are there computers in your legs? >> these particular legs have microprocessors in them. >> and what is the service's attitude about the future? for instance, will you be supplied legs for the rest of your life? >> i'm not positive about how that works.

but i am pretty sure that the v.a. will give me new legs and new sockets whenever i need them. i haven't really looked into how everything works. what i'm going to have to do. but i'm pretty sure that's how it works. >> the last segment of the documentary is live. what was your approach here? >> i think that oftentimes, in stories, when you hear about people injured in combat and coming back, you know, the initial focus is on that initial survival and recovery stage so i did want to show that rob was actually living a really pretty interesting life and doing a lot of really interesting things and the fact that recovery is not strictly that first two months or month after you've been injured. it goes beyond that for the rest of your life. >> did he ever say to you after you had taped something, you can't put that in there? >> no, never. actually, he's never said that to me. in fact, he gave me full creative freedom to do pretty much whatever i wanted which is pretty amazing. >> did that surprise you? >> i think he knows me well enough, i wouldn't do anything

that would either represent him poorly or incorrectly. >> this segment, let's see, it's five minutes and 57 seconds long, and it's the last of the three different sections. >> i really think it's his positive attitude and outlook on everything. he realizes you can't go back and change it so make the best of it. when he first got into his wheelchair he started learning to do tricks, like spinning around. >> he's one of those people, you could say caring and nice and passionate and all of this other stuff that you say about normal people, but i think everybody knows he's not normal. he's better than that. he's incredible. >> his dreams may have just

changed a little bit but he's still going for it. he's a cool dude. >> since i left walter reed inpatient i moved out to the outpatient housing for all the outpatients that they have here. basically, i've been going through the normal progression of the prosthetics. i have pretty much returned to a sense of normalcy as i was before, but i don't think i'll be completely normal until i get out of the hospital and i get a job and put this behind me. i have an internship with the f.b.i. in the works. once i get discharged, hopefully they will make me a job offer, and ideally, i will be able to become a special agent after getting myself in shape for the physical fitness test. >> still taking it to the bag guys even though i don't have any legs anymore. >> at the end of the year, i'm planning to attempt a cross country bike trip. so hopefully, i'll be able to do that. >> i would like to get into

maybe some kind of a para-olympics sport like rowing. i'm kind of looking at rowing. may be biathlon. >> i had to start with a baseline of having a great attitude. and having a solid -- just having a solid attitude to start from. but now that all of my friends and all of my family have seen me with that great attitude, i can't do anything, i can't change that, because it would let them down. and every time i ever start to feel, you know, start to feel down about my situation or start to feel sorry for myself, i remember that i have to maintain this attitude.

so it's really them forcing me to stay positive rather than me just coming up with some kind of inner strength to stay positive throughout the whole process. >> i recently put in an application for social security disability. got denied. yeah, that makes sense. i learned a lot about myself. a lot about perseverance. you have to keep going whether or not your circumstances are ideal. it's just the way things are, so you just kind of got to go with it, you know. >> he's never going to give up. and he's going to be successful no matter what you take away from him or throw at him. he's going to keep on driving. >> everyone is like, oh, he's so strong, blah, blah, blah. >> he just doesn't let stuff get to him. >> obviously this has changed a lot of things for him but he's

not letting this stop him from doing the things he wants to do. >> if rob wants to do something he'll do it. >> no matter how much it affects him, it doesn't show at off. his will power is amazing. >> obviously it really sucks that i lost my legs, you know, that's something i'll never have back and my life will be different from here on out. so, you know, that really sucks, but, you know, i can't dwell on that too much because there is nothing i can do to change it now. >> what amazes me most about rob is what he represents. that in the wake of something awful, the only thing you really can do is keep on going. it's not some momentous thing of courage that occurs in a movie's third act, backed with swelling strings and a vibrant horn section. really, it's just existing. it's accepting. shortly after rob got his senses back and he started the recovery process in bethesda, he said it all very succinctly.

survive, recover. live. nothing -- time to move on, time to keep going. it often said that hindsight is 20/20. the only way you can really understand life is by looking at it backwards. but i have to argue that really life is understood both ways. both forward and backwards. without the surprises and the unexpected, the good and bad lacks flavor. it lacks heart. if you know how your journey is going to end, if you know the punch line of the joke, really, there is no reason to laugh. >> thanks for that, have a good night. >> i better make sure before

this closes that you really aren't being denied social security in this process, are you? was that a joke or were you serious? >> i was denied social security benefits. but, i mean, i could have kept appealing, probably, and they probably would have eventually accepted. i know other people have been accepted, that have similar injuries, or, you know, less severe injuries. but honestly, i don't really care about it. i only applied for it because they told me i should. >> and what was the reason they gave you that you were denied? >> i don't remember the exact wording. but i think -- it was something like they expected me to be able to work within 12 months or something. i don't remember exactly what they said. i just read it and they said denied, and i was like, whatever, i don't care. >> so what do you expect from the marine corps once you get

out for the rest of your life, i assume there is some kind of a stipend for the rest of your life? >> yeah, i'll get all the v.a. benefits and i'll be getting disability forever, 100 per, i'm not sure what that equates to money-wise. i'll get that. and the marine corps and the government both do a good job of taking care of us after this happens. >> on the documentary side of this, if somebody wants to see the whole documentary, how can they do that? >> there are a couple of avenues. they can go to my website at lucky9studios.com and there is a link right there on the page to watch it. you can also go to vimeo.com and search for survive, recover. live. >> what does lucky 9 studios stand for? >> back when i was about 14 i decided i needed to make a production company for all the short films i was making and that became the name and it

stuck all the way through my professional career because nine always has been my lucky number. >> where did you get your college degree? >> i graduated from george washington university in 2007. >> this documentary was shot with what kind of a camera and edited on what contained of a machine? >> i shot it all on my personal camera, which is a panasonic pro zoomer camcorder, and it was all edited on any home computer in pro. >> how do you feel about the end product? >> i'm happy with the way it turned out. i think it showcases who rob is very well, and, if you hang out with rob for 15 minutes and watch the documentary, it's not painting a picture of someone that he isn't. he is that person that you see. >> so when did you hit bottom? >> hit bottom? >> after your injury, in the hospital, somewhere along the way, did you dip down and have a period of depression?

>> not really. every now and then, maybe, get a little dejected for like a day, you know, kind of have a bad day, kind of bummed, but not for any significant period of time. >> who of your friends or your family had the toughest time seeing you when you got back? >> oh, i'm sure it was probably my mom and my parents. >> and how are they doing now? >> they seem to be doing fine. they seem to be handling it pretty well. >> after -- what are did chances that you will get this job at the f.b.i., do you know yet? >> i guess that's going to depend on a lot of things. how well i perform in the internship. whether or not they will even be hiring at the time that i'm finished. you know, whether they have any openings in the place that i want to go. that kind of stuff. >> at this stage, in your recovery, how much therapy do

you have on a weekly basis? >> i do therapy, now that i'm doing the internship, i do it four days a week, i usually go in around 8:00 or 9:00 and i stay until 1:00 or 2:00, and, an hour lunch break. >> what kind of things do they have you doing now? >> most of the stuff that i'm doing right now is related to triathlon training and rowing training. but at first, they have do you a lot of strengthening of your core and your hip flexors, so that you're able to control your limbs and they do a lot of balance practice, and when you first get knees they teach you how to use them. then you just kind of do harder and harder stuff until you get to a point where you're ready to be done.

>> we're going to run the credits on your documentary, and they last about, oh, i think 4 1/2 minutes, but as we run them, we'll keep our microphones open and i'll ask you some, you know, get some quick definitions of the people that we see. so why don't we roll those and we'll wrap this up. >> that's me. >> that's you. >> throughout our whole tour in 2008 in iraq, he caught everything i ever threw, if you threw a water bottle to someone and they catch it, you throw him something like just a football around, or, you were sitting there prepping them up, throwing -- i'm sure if he was here today, you know, if i threw this water bottle, he would just kind of, just knowing him and his super human abilities, be able to catch this.

>> who is that? >> maybe i better explain this. this is one of my two physical therapists. both of these ladies are my physical therapists. very nice people when you meet them. zach is -- how do you say it? >> prostheticist. >> who is mary jean solomon? >> those three names and these two here are nurses and physical therapists, when i was an inpatient at embedded. >> it goes to show you there are a lot of people that made rob's care possible and the care he's getting is truly topnotch. >> who are these folks? >> these are people that help me get on the bike and get going on

that. >> your parents here? >> that's my dad and my stepmom. >> who is steve and carol miller? >> that's my stepdad and my mom. >> your mom is obviously on the right? >> yeah. >> live in this area? >> yes, virginia >> stevy miller is -- >> my little brother. >> how are you now? >> 25. >> and you're the same age? >> 26. >> allison -- your sister? >> uh-huh. >> how old is your sister? >> she's 29. >> probably doesn't like it that we've giving that news away. >> this is my friend mike, he's been a friend of ours since high school and he came on a couple of shoots to help me out and he's always been incredibly friendly with both of us. who is whitney robinson? >> she's a friend who has been really supportive. these are all rob's family, i believe. >> yeah, extended family. who were supportive in the process. regina. >> she's my stepgrandmother. >> stepgrandmother.

>> mrs. bower is the one who allowed us to -- it was a good venue to show -- >> loudoun valley high school out in loudoun county in the suburbs. >> exactly. and this is the veterans club in the school that made that possible as well. >> and then this is dan jones' family, and all the conglomerate of people who have helped out. >> the wounded warrior project is the place that people send money to help out? >> correct. and all the proceeds of the screening went toward the warrior project. >> in case i ever become famous. >> that's my moneymaker. it really is. >> it's okay. >> before my injury, i like to go to the gym a lot and somebody else ever walked into the locker room and gone, oh, that's a bad sign.

>> and this is all the music, it was donated to me. i didn't have to pay for rights, and the artist has a grown called gratis, which allows you to use music for free. >> i'll lean back like this. oh, my legs are stuck. these are just all my family and friends who have helped me out along the way. >> is this the end? >> and this is the end. >> lucky9studios. >> rob jones, you were talking earlier about the phantom sensation and the phantom pain. are you having any of that? >> yes, still have it. >> still have it? >> it's not nearly as bad. i get phantom pain a couple of seconds at a time. just a few times a day. it's not really a big deal. >> and are you going to do another documentary, anything more on rob jones?

>> i think rob's story, his future is so open-ended, that there is totally enough material probably to make another film especially as he starts getting into more para-olympic sports and kind of following that journey of his interesting starting point, and then eventually doing professional sporting events which i think he's very much capable of. >> we're out of time. thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you for having us. really appreciate it. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> for a dvd copy of this program, call 1-877-662-7726. to give comments on this program, visit us at q-and- a.org. the programs are also available as podcasts.