thedrifter
03-27-09, 08:31 AM
Millington's Jack Jacobs on the military, media, getting more to serve
Medal of Honor winner thanks vets and Marines in audience
By DENIS J. KELLY, Editor
Published: Mar 27th, 4:58 AM
LONG HILL TWP. -- Leading American military analyst, TV commentator, author and Vietnam Medal of Honor winner, retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs, spoke about the value of military training, the need for universal service and his experiences in the military before a packed room of veterans, library patrons and two active duty Marines in dress uniform on Saturday, March 21, at the Long Hill Library at the municipal complex, Valley Road, Gillette.
Jacobs thanked all the veterans in the audience for their service, and wished the Marines in the front row the best of luck in their assignments.
“Thank you for your service to this country,” he said to the marines and the veterans.
Jacobs a 17-year resident of Millington, said he was invited and encouraged to speak at the library by Mayor George Vitureira.
After his talk and question and answer session, he signed a box full of his book, “If Not Now, When: Duty and Sacrifice in America’s Time of Need,” which was published in October 2008. He also chatted with the veterans and posed for photographs with the Marines and the mayor.
Jacobs has appeared as a military analyst for NBC/MSNBC, and in fact, drove to the library from one of his customary Saturday morning appearances on MSNBC.
He is also heard as a regular on the “Imus in the Morning” radio program, appearing once every other week, or so, he said.
Jacobs was commissioned an officer through the ROTC program at Rutgers University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in the mid-1960s.
He received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1969 for exceptional heroism in Vietnam.
Acting as an advisor to a South Vietnamese infantry battalion, 1st Lt. Jacobs was with his men when they were caught in an ambush, and the commander was wounded. Though severely wounded himself, Jacobs took command and withdrew the unit to safety.
He then returned again and again under intense fire and saved the lives of a U.S. advisor and 13 allied soldiers.
He also holds three Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars, and two Purple Heart medals.
He has taught at the National War College, Washington, D.C., and at West Point Military Academy and teaches one course there now on the media.
Military Training
Jacobs said he is convinced that people who are successful in civilian life have either military experience or military type training.
He said that looking back on his experience, he learned so many valuable lessons when he was 19 years old, and from his time in Vietnam, when, fresh out of college and ROTC, he was made a platoon leader responsible for the lives of 50 men.
He said the nine principles of war, as taught in the military, have great applicability in civilian life, and that chief among them is that there must be a clear objective before doing something.
“There is an unalterable truth, that it takes more to hold something than to take something,” he said. “It is easier to take than to hold onto.”
He said that is true in business, where it is easier to start a business than it is to keep a business going, and in marriage, where it is easier to get married than to stay married.
Jacobs said that before getting deeper into Afghanistan, as President Barack Obama has said we are about to do, we have to have a clear objective in mind, as well as, not just how, when and where we will get in, but how, where and when we will get out.
Universal Service
On universal service, he does not advocate a draft, but thinks it is crucial that more Americans feel in their blood that it is important to serve their country.
“There are 306 million people in this country, and less than one-half of one percent are in uniform,” he said. “Switzerland can do it, why can’t we?”
Some of the problem comes from the Pentagon’s staffing decisions, where insufficient numbers of ground troops, Army and Marines, are budgeted so that more money can be put into big weapons systems managed and delivered by the Air Force and Navy.
But the other problem is the growing gulf between who serves and who doesn’t, and a new attitude that some people are beyond service. He bristles against the attitude that the nation’s security is a right, not something that has to be earned and defended.
He said he had been working on a project in the Erie, Pa., school system, funded through the General Electric Foundation, where students, particularly middle school students, are introduced to stories about winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Through meeting recipients, hearing about their oral histories, and understanding what they had to do to be so honored by their country, the kids learned things they had never been exposed to before, Jacobs said.
Eighty-five percent of the students in the poor city of Erie are considered “at risk,” Jacobs said, but this program reached those kids, who said both, “I never knew that,” and, to their school system, “Why haven’t you taught me that?”
These kids are ready to be challenged that way, Jacobs said.
In The Media
When it came time in his career to move to a Pentagon job, he said he resisted, retired, and went to work on Wall Street, “when there was a Wall Street.”
He eventually retired from that, too, and he recalled how he got into the media.
When the U.S. was getting into Afghanistan after 9/11, a military analyst at MSNBC at the time said it would be good to have someone with knowledge of ground force operations. He recommended Jacobs.
The person at MCNBC said he wanted a general, not a colonel.
Jacobs’ friend, a retired general himself, said, “Generals don’t know anything,” half jokingly, half seriously.
So they brought in Jacobs for a three-minute segment, and liked him so much, they called him in the next day, and the next. It’s been seven years since then.
Jacobs said he reads The New York Times, even though he said it isn’t as good as it used to be, The New Yorker, The Economist, which he seemed to like the best for its unbiased news and world news, and a smattering of other papers, such as the Washington Post for inside the beltway stuff, and the Los Angeles Times.
He said the best thing about Imus is that he lets analysts like him talk much more than on other shows. On MSNBC, it might be a two-minute segment, if that isn’t bumped by something late breaking, but on Imus, analysts like him are invited to talk, and keep talking until there is a commercial.
Jacobs said he worries about the impact of Cable TV news, where everything is “Breaking News,” programming both assumes and contributes to the shortening of attention spans, and everything is repeated over and over again.
He said he is afraid if newspapers fold because of lack of advertising and news internet sites can’t survive for lack of funds there will be a vacuum of credible news organizations at a time when more and more information is out there.
Medals Of Honor
About the Iraq War, he said that 75 percent or more of the casualties of war have been as a result of roadside bombs. That is one of the reasons why there have been so few Iraq War Medal of Honor recipients. The conditions are not right for winning one, Jacobs said.
He quoted former Medal of Honor Winner Bob Kerry, the president of The New School, New York City, and former senator and governor of Nebraska, who said to win the medal, you have to: do something worthy of winning one; have people see you do it; be able to write or have someone write about it; and have it survive all the way up the chain of command. If even one person on the chain of command says no, it is lost.
Ellie
Medal of Honor winner thanks vets and Marines in audience
By DENIS J. KELLY, Editor
Published: Mar 27th, 4:58 AM
LONG HILL TWP. -- Leading American military analyst, TV commentator, author and Vietnam Medal of Honor winner, retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs, spoke about the value of military training, the need for universal service and his experiences in the military before a packed room of veterans, library patrons and two active duty Marines in dress uniform on Saturday, March 21, at the Long Hill Library at the municipal complex, Valley Road, Gillette.
Jacobs thanked all the veterans in the audience for their service, and wished the Marines in the front row the best of luck in their assignments.
“Thank you for your service to this country,” he said to the marines and the veterans.
Jacobs a 17-year resident of Millington, said he was invited and encouraged to speak at the library by Mayor George Vitureira.
After his talk and question and answer session, he signed a box full of his book, “If Not Now, When: Duty and Sacrifice in America’s Time of Need,” which was published in October 2008. He also chatted with the veterans and posed for photographs with the Marines and the mayor.
Jacobs has appeared as a military analyst for NBC/MSNBC, and in fact, drove to the library from one of his customary Saturday morning appearances on MSNBC.
He is also heard as a regular on the “Imus in the Morning” radio program, appearing once every other week, or so, he said.
Jacobs was commissioned an officer through the ROTC program at Rutgers University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in the mid-1960s.
He received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1969 for exceptional heroism in Vietnam.
Acting as an advisor to a South Vietnamese infantry battalion, 1st Lt. Jacobs was with his men when they were caught in an ambush, and the commander was wounded. Though severely wounded himself, Jacobs took command and withdrew the unit to safety.
He then returned again and again under intense fire and saved the lives of a U.S. advisor and 13 allied soldiers.
He also holds three Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars, and two Purple Heart medals.
He has taught at the National War College, Washington, D.C., and at West Point Military Academy and teaches one course there now on the media.
Military Training
Jacobs said he is convinced that people who are successful in civilian life have either military experience or military type training.
He said that looking back on his experience, he learned so many valuable lessons when he was 19 years old, and from his time in Vietnam, when, fresh out of college and ROTC, he was made a platoon leader responsible for the lives of 50 men.
He said the nine principles of war, as taught in the military, have great applicability in civilian life, and that chief among them is that there must be a clear objective before doing something.
“There is an unalterable truth, that it takes more to hold something than to take something,” he said. “It is easier to take than to hold onto.”
He said that is true in business, where it is easier to start a business than it is to keep a business going, and in marriage, where it is easier to get married than to stay married.
Jacobs said that before getting deeper into Afghanistan, as President Barack Obama has said we are about to do, we have to have a clear objective in mind, as well as, not just how, when and where we will get in, but how, where and when we will get out.
Universal Service
On universal service, he does not advocate a draft, but thinks it is crucial that more Americans feel in their blood that it is important to serve their country.
“There are 306 million people in this country, and less than one-half of one percent are in uniform,” he said. “Switzerland can do it, why can’t we?”
Some of the problem comes from the Pentagon’s staffing decisions, where insufficient numbers of ground troops, Army and Marines, are budgeted so that more money can be put into big weapons systems managed and delivered by the Air Force and Navy.
But the other problem is the growing gulf between who serves and who doesn’t, and a new attitude that some people are beyond service. He bristles against the attitude that the nation’s security is a right, not something that has to be earned and defended.
He said he had been working on a project in the Erie, Pa., school system, funded through the General Electric Foundation, where students, particularly middle school students, are introduced to stories about winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Through meeting recipients, hearing about their oral histories, and understanding what they had to do to be so honored by their country, the kids learned things they had never been exposed to before, Jacobs said.
Eighty-five percent of the students in the poor city of Erie are considered “at risk,” Jacobs said, but this program reached those kids, who said both, “I never knew that,” and, to their school system, “Why haven’t you taught me that?”
These kids are ready to be challenged that way, Jacobs said.
In The Media
When it came time in his career to move to a Pentagon job, he said he resisted, retired, and went to work on Wall Street, “when there was a Wall Street.”
He eventually retired from that, too, and he recalled how he got into the media.
When the U.S. was getting into Afghanistan after 9/11, a military analyst at MSNBC at the time said it would be good to have someone with knowledge of ground force operations. He recommended Jacobs.
The person at MCNBC said he wanted a general, not a colonel.
Jacobs’ friend, a retired general himself, said, “Generals don’t know anything,” half jokingly, half seriously.
So they brought in Jacobs for a three-minute segment, and liked him so much, they called him in the next day, and the next. It’s been seven years since then.
Jacobs said he reads The New York Times, even though he said it isn’t as good as it used to be, The New Yorker, The Economist, which he seemed to like the best for its unbiased news and world news, and a smattering of other papers, such as the Washington Post for inside the beltway stuff, and the Los Angeles Times.
He said the best thing about Imus is that he lets analysts like him talk much more than on other shows. On MSNBC, it might be a two-minute segment, if that isn’t bumped by something late breaking, but on Imus, analysts like him are invited to talk, and keep talking until there is a commercial.
Jacobs said he worries about the impact of Cable TV news, where everything is “Breaking News,” programming both assumes and contributes to the shortening of attention spans, and everything is repeated over and over again.
He said he is afraid if newspapers fold because of lack of advertising and news internet sites can’t survive for lack of funds there will be a vacuum of credible news organizations at a time when more and more information is out there.
Medals Of Honor
About the Iraq War, he said that 75 percent or more of the casualties of war have been as a result of roadside bombs. That is one of the reasons why there have been so few Iraq War Medal of Honor recipients. The conditions are not right for winning one, Jacobs said.
He quoted former Medal of Honor Winner Bob Kerry, the president of The New School, New York City, and former senator and governor of Nebraska, who said to win the medal, you have to: do something worthy of winning one; have people see you do it; be able to write or have someone write about it; and have it survive all the way up the chain of command. If even one person on the chain of command says no, it is lost.
Ellie