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But it is especially for his radical reversal of his support for the Bush war in Iraq that Jones surrendered for the first time, a turning point that marked the beginning of a period of growing in outside the mainstream of House Republican.
Jones initially supported the war in 2002. – even going so far as to have led the effort to persuade cafeterias to rename fries to "Freedom Fries" in protest of the opposition. from France to the war led by the United States.
"It's a real tribute," he said at the time. "Whenever someone commands a Freedom Fries, I hope they will think of our men and women serving in this great nation."
Marine Sgt. Michael Bitz in 2003, he wrote a letter of apology to Bitz's family. And he continued to write such letters – more than 11,000 to relatives of members of US forces who died in the following years.
scarcely to vote for a useless war, "he told The Daily Tar Heel, of the student newspaper of the University of North Carolina, in November 2017.
Jones told the newspaper that he had also begun to regularly visit the wounded soldiers of the Walter Reed National Maryland Military Medical Center "must remember that the war is a hell – people are dying; people are wounded. "
Jones was a conservative democrat and in 1994 joined the Republican Party and was elected as part of the so-called Republican Revolution led by Newt Gingrich's representative, R-Ga.
But Jones' opposition to the war after 2003 highlights his growing estrangement from certain elements of his party Jones voted with the party 81% of the time during his congressional career, but only about 60% after the swearing-in of Trump in January 2017.
He called the representative Devin Nunes, R-Calif., Then the chairman of the Intelligence Committee stepped away from the investigation of the commission on the alleged influence of Russia in the 2016 elections, arguing that Nunes was too closely related to Trump.
And he has consistently opposed US military actions abroad since the entry into office of Trump. United States operations in Afghanistan and Syria
His colleagues remember Jones Sunday as a man of principle who defended his beliefs even when they were unpopular.
"He was an official faithful to his beliefs and we will miss him," North Carolina Republican Governor Roy Cooper said in a statement.
Sen. Thom Tillis, RN.C., said: "He always did what he felt was right for his constituents, his district and his country, and it was no wonder that his admiration and his confidence were so many. "
