Feed Drop: History Shorts - Conversations: Col. Jack H. Jacobs

KEN:

Hi, I'm Ken Harbaugh, host of the Medal of Honor podcast. Today, I want to introduce you to a new podcast from Evergreen Podcasts called History Shorts. Historian and professor Peter Zablocki published a book profiling all Medal of Honor recipients from his home state of New Jersey. In this episode, Peter speaks to the inspiration for the book, and the last surviving recipient of the medal from his state, Colonel Jack H. Jacobs. Jacobs' selfless acts under fire in Vietnam in 1968 saved the lives of his fellow soldiers and earned him the nation's highest military honor. Here is the story behind the story, a reflection on a life before and after receiving the award and the sacrifices that came along with it. If you want to hear more episodes of History Shorts, including exclusive interviews with famous historians, I encourage you to subscribe to History Shorts wherever you're listening to this podcast. And to hear more stories of those who have received the Medal of Honor, stay tuned for our upcoming episodes on this feed. Thanks and enjoy the show.

PETER:

Welcome to another episode of the History Shorts short conversation series. During his inaugural deployment to Vietnam, Lieutenant Jack A. Jacobs found himself amidst the sweltering jungles of Kampong province, a pivotal theater in the Mekong Delta region. On March 9, 1968, Jacobs, now serving as an assistant battalion advisor for the ARVN's 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, found himself thrust into a harrowing ordeal. On that fateful day, as they embarked on a mission, the tranquility of the Vietnamese landscape was shattered by the thunderous roar of enemy fire. Caught in the crosshairs of an entrenched Viet Cong force, chaos ensued. The company commander fell incapacitated and the unit teethered on the brink of disarray under the relentless barrage of enemy fire. Despite the wounds to his head and arms from mortar fragments Jacobs refused to yield to the chaos engulfing them. With unwavering determination he seized command of the company. orchestrating a strategic withdrawal to a more defensible position. His vision impaired by the injuries, he braved the open rice paddies, repeatedly darting through the hail of bullets to evacuate one wounded soldier after another. With each daring dash, Jacob defined death itself, rescuing his fellow advisor, the wounded company commander, and a dozen other allied soldiers. In the face of overwhelming odds, he confronted Viet Cong squads each time he went back to save another life. For his extraordinary acts of valor, Jacobs was promoted to the rank of captain and bestowed with the Medal of Honor, the highest recognition for bravery in the United States military. A testament to his heroism, President Richard Nixon himself presented him with the prestigious award recognizing his indomitable spirit and unwavering commitment to duty and honor. Our guest today is Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Jack H. Jacobs. His selfless acts under fire in Vietnam saved the lives of fellow soldiers and earned him the nation's highest military honors. The story of Mr. Jacobs' life before and after the defining event is one of resilience, leadership, and unwavering principles. Mr. Jacobs, in retrospect, what do you think it was about your upbringing, education, and family that prepared you for your time in Vietnam?

JACK:

Well, like most things in life, there's more than one reason or influence. There are a few that come immediately to mind. Once was my family. It was a very stable family. I've got a younger sister and a younger brother. My father had served in the Second World War. in New Guinea and the Philippines in the army and when he came home he was an electrical engineer and worked for the same company, Bell Telephone, until he retired. We all took care of each other, as did everybody In our neighborhood, we lived in subsidized housing that was built after the Second World War for returning veterans. And it seemed as if there was a duty roster or something because somebody's mother was always hanging out the window, keeping her eye on all of us kids from the fifth floor or the sixth floor of an apartment building. And if you did something wrong, you heard about it right away because whoever's mother was watching would yell at you. We were all in it together. And I think that was one of the major lessons from the Second World War is that we had to be together and we had to take care of each other. Otherwise, nobody was going to survive. The second thing was the quality of the education I received. I went to public school in Queens. PS 83 in Queens, and then later on when we moved to New Jersey and went to high school, public high school and college in New Jersey, and the standards of performance were very, very high. And as a result, everybody got a very good education, no matter where you finished in the class. And it stood everyone in good stead as we grew up. We learned discipline as much as anything else. And that was one of the major things that that made life easier when I was in the crucible of war. And the third thing, I think, was my father's service itself. He had been studying electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota and got dragged out of school in the draft and into the Army about something like eight weeks before graduation. And hated it, of course. Hated getting dragged out of school, hated being in the army, hated getting shot at. Nobody likes getting shot at. Got out of the army the instant that he could when the war was over. And yet when he got to be my age, all he and the friends of his who had survived, all they would talk about was how proud they were at having saved the world. And they were absolutely right. His service and that of his entire generation weighed very heavily on me. And I thought then, and I still think today, that everybody who's lucky enough to live in a free country owes it something in the form of service. And I wanted to do my bit. And that's why I joined the army.

PETER:

At this point in the interview, unstable internet connection forced us to finish the conversation via phone. Can you think of a particular experience or observation or feeling that you remember having when you first arrived in Vietnam?

JACK:

Well, in those cases, when you think something looks and feels and sounds like it's going to, it always disappoints you in some way. It's nothing at all like your imagination. But Vietnam was completely different. It looked exactly like I thought it would. And the situations in combat were exactly like I thought they would be. I got there the first week of September of 1967. Unbeknownst to us and everybody in the chain of command, including up to and including Department of Defense, didn't realize that the enemy was building up toward the Tet Offensive, which started in January, the end of January 1968. So when I got there, rapidly went into more frequent and more violent encounters with the enemy until when Tet started in 1968, we were in continuous combat. But it was no surprise. It was exactly like I expected it to be, and more violent to be sure, but the frequency of enemy contact turned out to be exactly like I expected it to be. And the difficulty of determining where the enemy was exactly was also no surprise. And over time, all of us got better at determining exactly what the situation, the tactical situation was on the ground. and in responding to it. But no, there were no surprises at all. And every day contributed to all of our tactical and even strategic military education.

PETER:

How has your perspective on heroism evolved since receiving the Medal of Honor?

JACK:

It has, actually. You know, if you ask any Medal of Honor recipient, they'll tell you the same thing. That he didn't I didn't think that he was particularly heroic, that there were people who were at least as valorous on the same day. There's a Medal of Honor recipient named Brian Thacker who very ruefully remembers from Vietnam during his action. He said there are three grieving mothers still whose sons were every bit as brave. And that's why we all realize that we We wear the medal not for ourselves, but for all those who can't, all those who served valiantly and never got home because they were killed in action. You don't think what you're doing is heroic because everybody is doing something to defeat the enemy and take care of each other. And until people are ardently trying to kill you, and you have to depend on your buddies, it's not until that happens do you realize what true heroism really is. It's the other guy who's heroic.

PETER:

Can you describe a moment or interaction in your life after receiving the Medal of Honor that particularly resonated with you?

JACK:

That's an interesting question. I was decorated in about a year and a half after the action in October of 1969. And they scheduled the ceremony. There were four of us, by the way, from the Army who were decorated in the same ceremony, but for different actions. And interestingly, parenthetically, the four of us are the only living Medal of Honor recipients who are still alive, who were decorated together. In any case, they scheduled it. uh... ceremony to coincide with the biennial get-together of medal of honor recipients and at that time there were three hundred seventy three hundred eighty recipients still alive uh... there were world war one recipients there was still a living recipient named bill siech who had conducted a bayonet charge on the citadel of beijing in nineteen hundred during the boxer rebellion he was still alive and we had uh... We had a dinner and we joined the other Medal of Honor recipients in Houston at this gala dinner. And the guy who sat to my right at my table was Eddie Rickenbacker, the ace from the first bowl. Wow. We had the dinner and they introduced us as the new Medal of Honor recipients and so on. We were really young. I think I was 23 or 24 years old. And maybe 25 by that time. And when the dinner was over, Jimmy Doolittle, who received the Medal of Honor for leading the bombing raid on Tokyo early in the war. He did that so that we could demonstrate to the Japanese that we were coming back. By that time, he was a retired three-star general. and a household name. I mean, everybody knew who Jimmy Doolittle was. They made a movie of his exploits, and I think it was 30 Seconds Over Tokyo and so on. He came over to me and he put his arm around me and said, come with me, young man, and took me to a corner of the ballroom. And he said, let me explain something to you. He said, you're no longer Jack Jacobs. You're Jack Jacobs Medal of Honor recipient, and you better comport yourself accordingly. Do you understand what I'm telling you? I said, yes, sir, I sure do. That was a seminal, it wasn't even a conversation, but it was a seminal conversation in my life. I realized that I, at that time, did not represent myself anymore. I represented all those valiant people. I mean, we lost almost half a million killed during the Second World War. I represent all those valiant people who never came home, and that has stuck with me ever since. And if there's one thing that changed my life, it's that brief conversation with Jimmy Tomlin.

PETER:

And last question, what prompted you to write down your story in If Not Now When in 2009? When did it seem like the right time?

JACK:

A friend of mine who's no longer with us died of Parkinson's disease about five, six years ago. He told me that I needed to write a book. I said, no, I don't. He said, yes, you do. And a very persuasive character dragged me off to a publisher and said, this guy's going to write a memoir. And I did. And I found that I found that cathartic is not the right word, but it was an enjoyable process, believe it or not, and goes a long way to validating somebody's observation once that everybody has got a book in them. I enjoyed writing it because I discovered that I enjoy writing. It was, I think the product turned out to be very good indeed and I would never have thought that until this friend of mine told me that I am definitely going to write a book and this was the result.

PETER:

Colonel Jacobs, thank you for your service and thank you for taking the time for a brief conversation today. The purpose of these short conversations is to inspire thought and reflection, as well as provide our listeners with a quick opportunity of getting to know the people behind the research, the books, and the events that we call history. You can read more about Colonel Jacob's story in his 2009 book titled, If Not Now, When? from Penguin Publishers. His story is also highlighted, among others like it, in the 2023 release, New Jersey and the Medal of Honor, from the History Press, Research, and written by myself, with the guidance of people such as Mr. Jack Jacobs. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can also check us out at HistoryShortsPodcast.com for new announcements and original feature articles written especially for the History Shorts website and not seen anywhere else. Thanks for listening.