Jack Jacobs

In the course of his military career, he served as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, a battalion executive officer in the 7th Infantry Division (United States), and a battalion commander with the 10th Infantry Regiment in Panama. He spent two tours of duty in Vietnam, both times as an advisor to infantry units in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). In his first deployment to Vietnam, Jacobs served as a first lieutenant with Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, in Kien Phong Province, part of the Mekong Delta region. By March 9, 1968, he was working as the assistant battalion advisor for the ARVN’s 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. During a mission on that day, 2nd Battalion came under intense fire from an entrenched Viet Cong force. As Jacobs called in air support from his position with the leading company, the company commander was disabled and the unit became disorganized due to heavy casualties. Although wounded himself by mortar fragments to the head and arms, Jacobs took command of the company and ordered a withdrawal and the establishment of a defense line at a more secure position. Despite impaired vision caused by his injuries, he repeatedly ran across open rice paddies through heavy fire to evacuate the wounded, personally saving a fellow advisor, the wounded company commander, and twelve other allied soldiers. Three times during these trips he encountered Viet Cong squads, which he single-handedly dispersed. He was subsequently promoted to captain and awarded the Medal of Honor.[1] The medal was formally presented to him by President Richard Nixon. In addition to the Medal of Honor, Jacobs received two Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. In his memoir, Jacobs recounts that he had to use subterfuge to return to a combat role in Vietnam after being awarded the Medal of Honor, as the military was unwilling to assign Medal of Honor recipients to combat roles. Jacobs was a faculty member at the United States Military Academy in West Point, teaching international relations and comparative politics for three years, from 1973 to 1976, and at the National War College in Washington, D.C. He retired from the Army in 1987 as a colonel. After his military retirement, Jacobs began a career in investment banking. He founded and was chief operating officer of AutoFinance Group, Inc., which dealt in the securitization of debt instruments. The company was later sold to KeyBank. He next worked as a managing director of Bankers Trust, overseeing the firm’s foreign exchange options and being involved in the institutional hedge fund business until leaving the company in 1996. Jacobs is a principal in The Fitzroy Group, an investment and residential real estate development organization which operates in London. He is also on the board of directors for several smaller corporations. Jacobs maintains involvement in several military-related organizations. He is vice chairman of the Medal of Honor Foundation, a member of the board of trustees for the National World War II Museum, and holds the McDermott Chair of Politics at the U.S. Military Academy. In October 2008, the Penguin Group published Jacobs’ memoir, If Not Now, When?: Duty and Sacrifice In America’s Time of Need, coauthored with New York Times best-selling author, Douglas Century, with a foreword by NBC Nightly News anchor and managing editor Brian Williams. The book won the 2010 Colby Award, recognizing a “first work of fiction or nonfiction that has made a significant contribution to the public’s understanding of intelligence operations, military history, or international affairs.” In May 2012, Thomas Dunne Books published Jacobs’ Basic: Surviving Boot Camp and Basic Training, co-written with David Fisher. The book is a history of the American military’s basic training told mainly through oral histories of those who have gone through Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force initial training. He is also a military analyst for NBC/MSNBC. In 2009 he appeared on The Colbert Report as part of the Doom Bunker segment. Jacobs is married to Sue Jacobs, has a grown daughter and two sons, and lives in Far Hills, New Jersey. He has also been a resident of the Millington section of Long Hill Township, New Jersey.