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ROANOKE, Alabama — The Georgia-Alabama State Line Chapter of the Quilts of Valor recently awarded a quilt to an Army veteran who saw services in Afghanistan. David Jeremiah Jones is originally from Roanoke and received the quilt at the home of his mother, Teresa Barber. Representing the local chapter in the ceremony were Debra Alexander and Dee Shealey.

Jones was in Army ROTC when he was a student at Auburn University and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2003. He took basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, graduating on the second anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks – Sept. 11, 2003. He later served at Fort Eustis in Virginia and Fort Benning before going to Afghanistan with a Birmingham-based National Guard unit. He served for more than one year in a combat zone.

An aviation specialist, Jones transferred to a National Guard unit in Jacksonville, Florida, where he attended the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, where he earned an A&P license to work as an aircraft mechanic. He later transferred back to the Birmingham National Guard, where he worked as a mechanic every Tuesday through Friday. His enlistment ended in 2009.

Jones is now the manager of maintenance for Chinook helicopters for a private firm that delivers food to African countries.