Col. Jacobs served multiple tours of duty in Vietnam and is one of the most highly decorated soldiers from that era. He was awarded three Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars, two Purple Hearts, and the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration.
His Colby Award-winning memoir, “If Not Now, When,” was published by Penguin in 2008. He currently holds the McDermott Chair of Humanities and Public Affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Col. Jacobs was an on-air analyst for NBC News, where he was an Emmy nominee in 2010 and 2011 and a recipient of the 2011 Murrow Award for his work on the Nightly News segment “Iraq: The Long Way Out.” and continues to serve as a military analyst for NBC/MSNBC.
Col. Jacobs was a founder and Chief Operating Officer of AutoFinance Group, and is currently a principal in the Fitzroy Group of London. He is Vice-Chairman of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation, and serves on the Board of the National World War II Museum. Col. Jacobs also serves on the Board of the Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation, which aids the families of troops and law enforcement officers killed in action.
He received both his B.A. and M.A. from Rutgers University where he studied international relations.