Medal of Honor Recipient Col. Jack Jacobs Reflects on America at 250 | The 1600

0:00Hello, hello from Newsweek headquarters at the top of the World Trade Center in New York City. This is The 1600, and I am Carlo Versano. This country was stone cold dead. We're coming on here to the eve of America's 250th birthday, depending on when you're listening to this. But July 4th is indeed coming up, and we've been talking both here on the pod and in the newsletter just about what it means to be an American today, what it means to be a patriot right now at this rather fraught moment in our history. But I think that one thing that we can probably all agree on is that there are certain people, certain Americans who embody the best of this country, particularly the selflessness, the heroism, the moments where everyday men and women transcend, I should say, into something greater than themselves.

0:46And there's even an award we give these people. It's called the Medal of Honor. It's the highest military decoration in our armed forces and is bestowed upon those who have distinguished themselves with acts of valor and bravery on the battlefield that go above and beyond the call of duty. So in a country where we really can't seem to agree on pretty much anything, we can't really even agree on what the weather is from a day-to-day basis, these are acts of heroism that are undeniable to everybody, to all of us. There's only been about 3 ,500 people in this country who have received this recognition out of some 40 million people who have served.

1:20And it also is by no means exhaustive, right? The Medal of Honor isn't given to the regular Americans who commit acts of heroism and bravery every day off the battlefield just in their day-to-day lives. We don't have an award for those people, many of whom get no recognition at all. But as we do come together to celebrate our 250th birthday here, the Medal of Honor, I think, is as good a totem as exists just to remember the values that make this country great. To that end, this is a long way of introducing my guests today, but also to note that Newsweek is partnering with the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, this summer to highlight 250 of the recipients of the Medal of Honor and their courageous and heroic stories over the years.

2:00I have with me today one of those people. His name is Colonel Jack Jacobs. You may actually know that name because he's on your TV fairly frequently. He's a contributor to both MSNOW and CNBC. He used to be a contributor to NBC News where I remember working with him. But more importantly, Colonel Jacobs received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Vietnam War back in the late 60s. Colonel Jacobs, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me on the show. It's really great to have you. See you in the flesh here. So there's a lot I want to ask you about, particularly related to the medal, of course.

2:32But before we get there, we are, as I said, we're on the eve of our semi-quincentennial, which I think is the correct name for 250. It doesn't really roll off the tongue like bicentennial. Start packing Latin into English. It never works. But as somebody who has fought for this country and who has been around for a while now, I hope you don't take offense to that, but you're a great American. No, I'm aged. I'm certifiably elderly at the moment. But all that is to say, from your vantage point, what do you think is the state of the country right now? Not an easy question, I know, to tee you off.

3:10Well, it's always complicated. You know, we've got a country that was forged together out of 13 disparate states, none of whom really wanted to be together, actually. Sure. and banded together only because they couldn't survive otherwise. They hated it the way it was. And it's kind of interesting to take a look at the Constitution, which is the most compromised and compromising document probably ever written, just to accommodate the disparate desires and objectives of each of the colonies, just to forge them into one country. And you realize that we probably haven't come very far in 250 years.

3:52I mean, we agree on a lot of things, but we disagree on most things. And that hasn't changed in 250 years. And in the infrequent times we have come together, it's been under duress. The revolution, finally, after we signed the declaration, we're actually going to fight for it. We lost something like 6 ,000 Americans who died during the revolution. And then the Civil War, we didn't agree on anything there. I mean, there was the compromise that resulted from the Constitution. We fought again ourselves a couple of generations later. But we came together. The First World War, we came together. Second World War, we came together.

4:41It's interesting about the Second World War. We were the most isolationist country you could possibly believe. The president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, actually got on nationwide radio when war was raging on two continents. And said, American boys are not going to fight. We're not going to fight. European boys are going to fight in Europe. Asian boys are going to fight in Asia. We're not going to fight. He said, I hate war. He said, Eleanor hates war, his wife. He said, Fala hates war. Fallot was his dog, and he quoted his dog on nationwide radio. And yet, when the Japanese attacked on the 7th of December 1941, on the 8th of December, this isolationist country all came together, and hundreds of thousands of young people streamed to reception stations all around the country to go defend the republic.

5:37We came together again. And just about every war we've fought has been divisive in one way or another. And the divisions in the country seem to be exacerbated because of the media and a wide variety of other independent variables. But it's no different than it than it was before in many respects. The downside is that if it's true that we come together only under real duress, under extremely difficult situations, under crises, it means maybe we won't be able to come together unless there is another crisis and nobody wants one. So in many respects, because we can't predict the future, we can't rotate forward, we don't know what's going to come.

6:22Everything seems fraught with danger. But we've come together before and we're going to do it again. come together in in harder times i mean i think that's one of the things we always forget like you know life is better now in in many respects than it has ever been for for many america most americans i would argue most america um but if if in it to your point about the media it feels more divisive it feels more fraught because i think to a large respect everybody's living in these their own silos now right so they're getting their own information fed back to them right But anyway, that's a conversation for another take.

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7:27Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Back to the Medal of Honor. So before I ask you about what happened in the late winter of 1968. Well, it was March. It was the springtime. March, spring of 68, right. The thing that I've always liked about the Medal of Honor is that it's not awarded for individual accomplishments. It's like it's not – it's not given for like the most kills or like the highest rank or like the longest service, right? It is – it's about a decision, a decision that people make in – almost always in like a fraction of a second, a decision to put somebody else before them.

8:06So I want to go back to the Vietnam War now, 1968. You're 22 years old at this time. 22, yeah. And again, before we get to the events of March 9th, you were a first lieutenant serving as an advisor, if I understand correctly, to the South Vietnamese Battalion. So you weren't actually commanding American troops to begin with, but you were embedded with our allies. So walk us through what that assignment actually felt like. Well, it was very frustrating. Here I was, a first lieutenant, as an advisor to a Vietnamese lieutenant colonel for a long while, who'd been fighting for 20 years and doing lots of the wrong things.

8:42And yet trying to get him to do the right thing, even though it made a great deal of tactical and strategic sense, often fell on deaf ears because he had more experience. He was, you know, 10, 12 years older than I and knew what it was to fight continuously, and I didn't. until I got there. So it was frustrating. Every once in a while, he would take my advice. And of course, those situations built on each other. Every time he would take my advice and it would work out, he'd be more inclined to take my advice the next time. And of course, that was the whole idea of advisory. Right. So you didn't come in with his respect.

9:18You had to earn it. Oh, no. I mean, absolutely not. As a matter of fact, and it wasn't me. It was just, you know, in a combat that situation in particular, those who served in the crucible of war understand this better than anybody, that you come together and people you wouldn't have anything to do with otherwise become your brothers instantaneously because you depend on one another for absolutely everything. So after a while, this higher ranking lieutenant colonel not only trusted me, but became my friend. And when the higher headquarters wanted to send a major down, like two levels above me, to take my place and then I'd become his assistant, the battalion commander, who didn't trust me when I first got there.

10:06South Vietnamese. South Vietnamese lieutenant colonel. He said, I don't want him here. I said, sir, no, no, he's coming down here. Right. And he's taking my place and I'm going to be his assistant and so on. He said, well, I don't want him here. And I'm not going to feed him. I said, no, no, sir. You got to feed him. But he did come down and it all worked out for the best. But you're absolutely right. You had to earn. I think in any situation, you got to earn somebody else's trust. Absolutely. OK, so March 9th of 68. A mortar round lands just a few feet away from you. It sends shrapnel through the top of your head.

10:42Most of the bones in your face were broken. You could only see out of one eye. And so what you describe doing next, and you've described this both in your book, on television at the Medal of Honor ceremonies. So I'm not like, I don't mean, I'm not like jumping on your story, stepping on your story is what I'm trying to say. But you describe crossing open rice paddies repeatedly under fire. What is happening in your mind at this moment? Do you remember? Well, not much. Somebody asked me once, what was going through your mind? What was going through your mind? Don't get shot. It's a shrapnel, mostly.

11:12Yeah, right. You know, it's kind of an interesting circumstance. And again, people who've been in combat or have been in difficult situations, in real crisis situations, would understand that a crisis is kind of a unique situation. A lot of us have worked for people who said that everything's a crisis. So if everything's a crisis, then nothing's a crisis. But a crisis is a very specific set of circumstances. Things are really bad. They're getting worse. Something has to be done, has to be done right away. And if it isn't done right away, everything's going down the tubes. We had walked into a giant L-shaped ambush that had been set over a period of three days by the enemy.

11:57They had a spy in our headquarters, so they knew we were coming. And they sprang the ambush when we got about 50 meters away. And everybody or almost everybody in the two lead companies was either killed or wounded in the first 10 or 15 seconds of the engagement. And your perception is that this is a crisis and that you may be the only person who can do anything. It may be completely erroneous, but that's your perception. And I'm constantly reminded, looking back on it, and when I talk, especially to kids in colleges and high schools, about doing the right thing, I'm reminded of the observation of a first century Hebrew scholar, Hillel, who said, if not you, and if not now, when?

12:52My perception was that if somebody didn't do something, we're all going to die and maybe I was the only person who could do it. And you think – you really do think only about your buddies. So what happened? Well, my NCO, Ray Ramirez from Raymondville, Texas, was also very badly wounded. I managed to bring him to it. There was a wooded area, and I patched them up and then realized there were lots of other people who were hurt. And I went out and got as many as I possibly could. Ran into the enemy, not surprisingly. They were shooting across this open rice paddy, so the fields of fire were extraordinarily good for them.

13:40Right. Not a lot of places to hide. Yeah. There's no place to hide. and managed to get... And then, after a while, I sat down because I was really tired and I didn't realize I was really tired because I'd lost a lot of blood. And I couldn't get up. Had you known you'd been hit? Oh, yeah, yeah. I was hit at the very beginning of the engagement. There's an amusing story about that, if we've got time. Plenty of time. So Ramirez has a couple of second chest wounds and an abdominal wound. A radio telephone operator is killed. He crawls over in the middle of the firefight and calls back to Bajor Nolan, who was my boss, our boss.

14:29And he's looking at me, Reyes. He's badly wounded, and I got this head wound. And his call sign, by the way, is 3-2-Charlie, and I'm 3-2-Alpha. He says, this is 3-2 Charlie. 3-2 Alpha is hit real bad, and I don't think he's going to make it. He's looking at me and collapses. I low crawl over to pick up the handset, having not heard this transmission. And I call back. I said, this is 3-2 Alpha. 3-2 Charlie is hit real bad, and I don't think he's going to make it. And the guy who was two levels above, my boss's boss, calls down and says, what is this, a vaudeville routine? You guys get to work. You know, looking back, Ray survived.

15:18He did make it. He did indeed. I got plenty of amusing stories in the hospital about Ray and me. But we managed to beat the bad guys in the end. We managed to survive in any case. But we lost a lot of people, killed and wounded. And you regret all the things you think in retrospect you could have done, but you didn't. But that was nearly 60 years ago. So you saved the life of one U.S. advisor, 13 Allied soldiers, single-handedly killed three enemy combatants, wounded several more. Just talking to me, when you look back on that day 60 years ago, what do you feel? I mean, I'm sure you still remember it, like the visceralness of it, right?

16:08Yeah, I'm reminded of something that Mark Twain once wrote. He said, when I was young, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not. And now that I'm all like, I can only remember the stuff that didn't happen. But I remember being scared. Yeah. Somebody once asked me, were you scared? I said, I was always scared in combat. I mean, and when I wasn't in combat, I was scared I would soon be in combat. Because people are ardently trying to kill you. And you have to kill the bad guys and protect the good guys. And sometimes they're mutually exclusive. People at the higher levels, the higher echelons of leadership know that all too well.

16:53That sacrifice, service and sacrifice, but particularly sacrifice in difficult situations, is sort of a common currency. and you can't do much about it. But the thing that I remember most about it was my buddies, mostly Vietnamese, people I'd served with. I'd been in combat during the Tet Offensive in difficult circumstances like this, not nearly as bad as this, but very bad, in which we lost plenty of guys, killed and wounded. And in this circumstance, lost many more of my friends. Who now would be 80-something years old, but are not.

17:38And look back on it, not with a great deal of sadness that one couldn't do more. But there were a lot of brave people that day. Somebody once asked a Medal of Honor recipient, and I can't remember who it was. What does it take to get the Medal of Honor? He said, well, you've got to do something. People have to see it. They have to be able to write, and they can't hate you. Those are the four requirements. So you think about that we've had 40 million people in uniform, maybe more in our history, and a lot of them served in combat. And in situations in which they did something valorous and nobody saw it.

18:28Or somebody saw it and they themselves were killed and there were no witnesses left. Or what happened in many cases, or certainly some cases, it got written up by the witnesses, but either accidentally or in some cases on purpose. The paperwork was lost, destroyed. Right. And you realize that you wear the award not for yourself, but you wear it for all those who can't. there was a medal of honor recipient now deceased for a long time was the the oldest living recipient a guy named woody williams who was a young marine earned the medal on on iwo jima and he frequently would he when he would wear the medal he'd touch it and he'd say i i this is not mine i just hold this in trust and if you ask any of there are 65 of us left alive when i was decorated There were almost 400.

19:22There were 65 of us left alive. And each one of us would tell you the same thing. It's not ours. We wear it for all those who can't. And we hold it in trust. We have what I thought was a striking quote as part of this Newsweek piece that we're releasing this week. It says it's harder to wear the medal than it is to earn it. Is that what you mean by that? Yeah. And there are a lot of recipients who will tell you the same thing. You want an anecdote about that? So there were four of us who were decorated in the same ceremony from the Army, but for different actions. We're the only people who were decorated together who were still alive, which is something of an accomplishment.

20:04And Nixon was the president. And we're in the Oval Office. The ceremony was out on the lawn. We're the only people decorated on the lawn of the White House. This is like, what, 69? 69. It was October of 69. And he says, what are you guys doing tomorrow? I said, well, I don't know. You know, we're going home. He says, no. He says, you know, you want to meet the other Medal of Honor recipients. Sure, we'd love to do that. And they had scheduled the ceremony to coincide with the biennial get-together of the Medal of Honor Society, which that year was meeting in Houston. And timed it so that we could take my plane, take my plane.

20:45We rode on Air Force One to go down there the next morning. down to Houston and get there in time for the gala. At the gala is something like 350 Medal of Honor recipients. My table mate, the guy who sat next to me, was Eddie Rickenbacker, the ace from the First World War. Wow. I thought he was the oldest guy who ever lived. I was very chagrined to realize not long ago that when I met Eddie Rickenbacker, he was three years younger than I am now. This is very disconcerting. There was still a living recipient alive named Bill Siech at the dinner. And Bill Siech had conducted a bayonet charge on the citadel at Beijing in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion.

21:32There were recipients from the First World War, Ben Kaufman, Van Ursel and those guys and so on. And a lot of guys who were recipients from the Second World War. You know, Audie Murphy and Joe Foss. Jimmy Doolittle. And Jimmy Doolittle. At the end of the dinner, I feel a hand on my shoulder, and it's Jimmy Doolittle. I mean, a household name. Of the Doolittle raid after Pearl Harbor. Correct. And at the time, a retired three-star general, and much younger than I am now, by the way. I mean, all the World War II guys were only like 20, 25 years older than I. They seemed old, but they weren't. And he put his hand on my shoulder and brought me to the corner of the ballroom and said, young man, let me tell you something.

22:24He said, you're no longer Jack Jacobs. You're Jack Jacobs Medal of Honor recipient. And you'd better comport yourself accordingly. Do you understand what I am telling you? Yes, sir. You're right. Jimmy Doolittle. Right. And he was absolutely right. And it's a long-winded way of saying that the observation about wearing the medal is correct. It's not that it's – one doesn't remember exactly what happened on the day, but other people saw it. But you certainly remember that you represent all those people who can't wear the medal. and it is difficult to wear sometimes because you almost hear their voices, all the people who sacrificed so that we can enjoy freedom.

23:16We lost almost half a million people killed in the Second World War. To the extent that I grew up at all, it was in the projects in Long Island City, all of my friends' fathers had served, all of them. I had friends who had no fathers at all because they'd been killed in action. We don't have that anymore. More is the pity. We have decided to outsource the defense of the country to an extremely small number of young men and women who are willing to do it, which I think is a big mistake. But back then, everybody had served. Does that mean that we just stopping you there for a second? Does that mean that you would be in support of bringing back the draft?

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24:32No, no, everybody's service. And there's a way to do it. Israelis do it. They do do it. Here's something interesting. I mean, we're sitting at One World Trade Center. More people were killed in New York City on 9-11 than were killed at Pearl Harbor, a place where most Americans didn't know where it was. Hawaii didn't even become a state until I was in high school. And remember, we were talking about how isolationist this country was. And yet on the 8th of December, 1941, hundreds of thousands of young people went to defend the country. And I'm an equal opportunity castigator. So, you know, it doesn't pain me to say on the 9-12, Well, the president of the United States said, don't worry about it.

25:22Go shopping. Go shopping. He said, go shopping. No, no. I want everybody. I joined the Army at least partially because my father had been in the service, been dragooned into the Army during the Second World War and hated the Army, hated getting shot at. Nobody likes that. 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 would talk about was how proud he was at having saved the world. Everybody had served. We don't do that anymore, but we should. I joined the Army because 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.

26:03And we don't have to drag the entire 18-year-old cohort into the Army for two years. There's no need to do that. But consider this. Switzerland has compulsory service. We should absolutely have compulsory service. I mean, I don't know how much time we got on this. Plenty. You want Jacob's plan? Yeah, tell me the Jacob's plan. Okay. Are you running? 28? I'm not. The only running I'm doing is I put my shorts on and out I go. And now it takes me just as long to run five miles as it did to run 26 miles years ago. I'm as slow as molasses. Anyway, okay, so the object, it's a military way of thinking.

26:45and it's a business way of thinking. What are you trying to accomplish? Well, it's not that we want everybody to have skin in the game. So here's an idea. When you're 18 years old, you go to basic training. Everybody. I mean, there's no board to say that I get to go to basic training, but you can go play video games. None of that. That's the key. Everybody goes. Everybody goes. You're missing an arm. I got a basic training for you. Right. Your father's the CEO of a company. You got a bone spur. Everybody goes to basic training. And I send you the basic training for 10 or 12 weeks, whatever it happens to be, where everybody crawls in the mud and eats rotten food and throws a hand grenade and shoots guns and all that rest of that.

27:30Goes through all that stuff. Goes on a land navigation course and gets lost in the woods and catches poison. All the things that we all did when we were 20 years old, 18 years old. Everybody does it. And at the end of basic training, I give you a pair of boots and a uniform and tell you I never want to see you again. Go home. And I am telling you a couple of things. First of all, we would probably have to convene boards to determine whom among the kids who want to come on active duty we want to have. Yeah. That's the first thing. The second thing that would happen is that everybody will have had exactly the same experience of having, even if it's just for 10 weeks, having served their country.

28:18And you're at some bar in Midtown and the guy making the drinks, the bouncer, the guy who – Sure experience. Everybody will – and I'm telling you everybody will have all kinds of stories about some idiot in his basic – Sure. Right. We all will have – the result will have been something like my father's experience. This stinks. And then, you know, I didn't do nothing and I made a contribution just like everybody else did. The person who serves wouldn't be the odd man out. Today, statistically, most Americans do not know anybody in uniform. Yeah. This is a very sad state of affairs. We don't have the political will to do it.