Rep. Jones, Resolving To Follow His Heart

He is exceptionally polite through all the questions, repeating himself often, thanking each person he encounters, including the peace activists from Code Pink who catch him for a few words, despite the best efforts of Jones's aides to run interference. Jones has made it clear that he remains supportive of keeping the troops in Afghanistan. He's nowhere near becoming a peace activist, just a man who believes he's following his conscience, the way his father taught him.

He worries that the U.S. military is overextended, that our borders are in danger and that there are so many other countries to worry about, from North Korea's nuclear ambitions to China's growing economic power.

The first step, he says, is coming home from Iraq.

It compels him to sign those letters and make those calls to the families, and sometimes to simply break down in tears.

Doing a TV interview yesterday, he makes sure to position himself in front of a picture of a 6-year-old boy at the funeral of his father, who was killed in Iraq. The boy clings to the folded flag from his father's coffin.

The posters of the dead, each with rows of small snapshots, line the fourth-floor corridor leading to Jones's office. He asked his colleagues to each take a poster after the building superintendents complained about access in the hallway. As he walks down the hall, he points out visitors who have stopped to look at the faces.

"You see that?" he says. "I wanted people to remember that somebody has given their life each and every day for this country. These people who have given their lives, somebody is looking at them and remembering that people are dying."

The posters continue around the corner, he adds, and there are more coming.