JOEY HEALD SPOILER!

Joey Heald is a young soldier in the recovery team that finds Yuji after his cryogenic sleep. Unlike Marlene's hard-edged professionalism, Joey approaches Yuji with patience and quickly becomes one of the first friendly faces in the future he has awakened into. He helps convince Marlene that Yuji can be useful in the field and teaches him how to operate an Armor Shrike, giving a frightened civilian the first practical skills he needs to survive against the Blue. Joey's kindness matters because it arrives before Yuji has learned to distrust almost everyone around him. His death during the dangerous journey toward Second Earth hits Yuji hard and reinforces how quickly ordinary friendship can be taken away in this world.