EXCLUSIVE: 'I lost him the way I found him': Grieving father tells how adopted US Army vet son came into his life via a phone call and then left the same way after being killed in Ukraine war

Two lifechanging phone calls hold painstaking parallels for Howard Jones. 

The heartbroken father said goodbye to his adopted son this week after the Army veteran was killed while fighting for Ukraine. 

When Ministry of Defense officials told him the devastating news over the phone two weeks ago, Howard couldn't help be reminded of the call he took from social services at the beginning of his late son's life. 

Jeff Jones, 48, died in Ukraine on July 31 after being struck by mortar's explosive shell 

Howard says he was proud of his son and supported his ambitions (the pair are pictured together)

Jeff Jones was adopted by Howard and his wife Earline 

Howard adopted his son when he was just eight years old after Jeff's mother was deemed unfit to care for him. 

'Jeff kind of came into the world in a violent way and he obviously went out in a violent way. It's kind of ironic,' he said. 

He had been born in Maine and grew up in the slums of Lewiston with his mom who lived with significant mental heath issues.

His biological father, Howard's brother-in-law, walked out when he was just six months old.

Jeff played with a lot of 'rougher kids' but quickly learned how to defend himself mentally and physically.

When he was five years old, his mum was committed to a mental health facility and Jeff was sent to live with relatives while she recovered for more than a year. 

She was eventually released and they lived together once again, wandering the streets of Cambridge and Boston.

When the pair were picked up by police, they refused to reveal any information about their identities. 

'He stuck to it, he did not say anything about who he knew or where he was from,' Howard said. 

It was decided Jeff wasn't safe in her care and he was put into foster care for about six months. 

At some point, authorities were able to link him to Howard and Earline. 

'I got a phone call from social services telling us "we found Jeff". We didn't know where he was. They had just disappeared. Did not communicate with any of the family,' Howard explained. 

As a young boy, Jeff dreamed of joining the army 

He completed his basic training at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia (pictured with Earline and Howard) 

Jeff was trained as a parashooter after joining the Army Airborne Division

He enjoyed travelling and started thinking about helping Ukraine while in Poland 

'We went down, picked him up, did all the necessary paperwork to take them over as a foster child and within about two years, we adopted him.' 

Jeff graduated from high school and took up a job for two years before joining the army, completing his basic training at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. 

He was trained to parachute after joining the Army Airborne Division, jumping out of airplanes until knee problems disqualified in his early twenties from the service, Howard says. 

'His lifetime goal to join a military and serve as a career was just shattered,' Howard says. 

Jeff eventually married and the couple had a son but they separated when the boy was a child. 

His adoptive mom Earline passed away in 2007 from breast cancer after a very brave and determined fight. 

Jeff spent time working in Boston for a number of years, before moving close to his dad in Columbia, South Carolina, and then to California 

In 2019, Jeff returned to Maine, and lived in Westbrook, working at a facility that made Covid test kits. 

After a year-and-a-half, he began travelling for six weeks, visiting friends in Poland prior to the Ukraine war. 

He returned to Maine, worked another job, before moving to Perry, Georgia, at the beginning of the Russian invasion. 

'For three months, all he talked about was going over and volunteering, fighting against the Russians. He was very determined to go,' Howard says. 

'I helped him but I would not fund him directly. I told him, "I don't want to be haunted by your mother".

He joined the American Ukrainian Aid Foundation in Poland 

Eventually he was able to sign up as a foreign fighter

'My focus was on convincing him to do humanitarian work.' 

He went over to Europe in March of 2022, ending up with a friend in Krakow, Poland, and accepted a volunteer position at train stations where refugees were coming in. 

'Jeff helped direct everybody, all the families, where they needed to go next in order to go through immigration and continue their path wherever they were going in the world.

'Unfortunately, that wasn't very challenging. So he decided he was going to go Lviv in Ukraine where he met up with a group of people, primarily medics, who had a team and were creating a new team to medic team to, not join the Ukrainian army, but be volunteers accepted by the Ukrainian army, to go to the front and help treat injured Ukrainian soldiers and recover bodies.' 

Jeff was trained to help with triage in the field and his primary function was to guard the medics and the injured troops.

During that time, Ukraine was training new recruits but with limited resources. 

Howard claims the medic teams would train the new recruits and became friends with a group of people who died by a Russian missile. 

'Jeff's group had to go in and retrieve the bodies. I don't know how many cases of injuries they've treated, but they had to help support that,' he says. 

One day, while out on a patrol, Jeff's group were barraged by artillery and they were forced to take shelter behind a building which was struck by a shell. 

A cement wall collapsed and landed on Jeff, putting him in a local hospital for five days.  

'He was saved by his helmet,' Howard says. 

When he got out of the hospital, he decided he wanted to come home and Howard helped him with funds to return to Georgia. 

Jeff's body was retrieved from the battle zone 

But once he got back, almost straight away, Jeff started talking about another trip to Ukraine. 

'The same started over again,' he said.

'I tried to convince him to get EMT training in Georgia and serve as an EMT which I thought would be fulfilling but he did not express enough interest to go.

'What he did was he got over to Poland and he joined the American Ukrainian Foundation. They were getting supplies from all over the world. 

'He worked with them for about four weeks. We had a lot of correspondence during that time.' 

'When they were making a delivery, he got somewhat close to the front by Kyiv, I believe, where he made connections with the Ministry of Defense and signed up for the Ukrainian Army, as a foreign fighter.

'He did a lot of trainings with foreign fighters, some of which had no military experience at all.' 

Jeff kept in touch with Howard but was used him going silent for about a week at a time. 

On July 31, Jeff had returned from a fire fight and sent a message to Howard saying that he had volunteered to go out on a mission that all the other groups of people were afraid to go on.

'He said he would tell us when he got back,' Howard. 

'I messaged him, never got a reply back. Less than four hours later, I got a call from a person who he had befriended saying that he was killed in action.'

The Ministry of Defence for Ukraine held a ceremony acknowledging Jeff's death this week

 His photo sat in the middle of a table with his name, birthdate and date of death printed onto a wooden box

His ashes are expected to return to Bangor International Airport in September

While shocked and overwhelmed with sadness, Howard says the news didn't come as a shock after preparing himself for the worst.  

'Within an five or six hours that hearing that he was alive, I got unconfirmed information from the embassy he was killed.' 

Four days later, he got the call from the US Embassy to say Jeff's death was confirmed from the Ministry of Defense in Ukraine. 

'When I heard that was done, I wasn't necessarily surprised. He volunteered he was a risk taker. He was protective of the group of people he was with.'

Jeff's body was retrieved from the battle zone and his ashes are expected to return to Bangor International Airport in September. 

This week the Ministry of Defence for Ukraine held a ceremony to acknowledge Jeff and his service. His photo sat in the middle of a table with his name, birthdate and date of death printed onto a wooden box. 

Howard is proud of his son and hopes people understand why it was so important to his son to try and make a difference. 

'He told many people and he realized how risky it was, and he was willing to sacrifice himself. 

'He wanted to bring meaning to his life.'