After two years as a resident and house physician at the Boston Children's Hospital, he entered the field of orthopedics in St. Louis, Missouri, and worked with Nathaniel Allison, who became one of his best friends.

Early in his career he served two tours of duty in the Philippines with a small unit operating in Samar and Leyte against native insurgents.

He was subsequently (1927–1933) chief of surgery at the station hospital at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, later to become the Brooke Army Medical Center.

With the outbreak of World War II, appropriations for the Library were increased; the demands for its services trebled and quadrupled within the space of a few months in 1940.

In July 1942, he arranged for the Cleveland Medical Library Association (CMLA), in Ohio, to store some 75 tons worth of the AML’s rare books and incunabula for safekeeping and restoration.

During the war years, he also formed a temporary consulting group of top physicians and librarians to advise on the operation and future development of the AML, to significant effect.

Colonel Jones had reached retirement age in November 1941, but was asked by the Surgeon General to remain on wartime duty as Director of the Army Medical Library.

In addition, second only to his keen interest in medicine and surgery, he also had a great bent for travel and literary pursuits.

In 1945, he wrote a short piece neatly combining many of his interests in "Some Physicians—Real and Fictional—in French Literature," which appeared in the MLA Bulletin.

His eyes were merry, mischievous, and bright, and his clipped white moustache made one think of a colonel from Esquire, except that he was not at all heavy for his height."