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Col. Jack Jacobs

Jack Jacobs is a msnbc military analyst. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Rutgers University and entered the U.S. Army in 1966 as a Second Lieutenant through the ROTC program. He served as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 7th Infantry Division, and commanded the 4th Battalion 10th Infantry in Panama.
/ Source: msnbc.com

Jack Jacobs was born in Brooklyn, New York. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Rutgers University and entered the U.S. Army in 1966 as a Second Lieutenant through the ROTC program. He served as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 7th Infantry Division, and commanded the 4th Battalion 10th Infantry in Panama. A member of the faculty of the US Military Academy, Jacobs taught international relations and comparative politics for three years, and he was a member of the faculty of the National War College in Washington, DC.

He was in Vietnam twice, both times as an advisor to Vietnamese infantry battalions, and he is among the most highly decorated soldiers from that era, having earned three Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars and the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest combat decoration.
Jacobs retired as a Colonel in 1987. He was a founder and Chief Operating Officer of AutoFinance Group Inc, one of the firms to pioneer the securitization of debt instruments; the firm was subsequently sold to Key Bank. He was a Managing Director of Bankers Trust, where he ran foreign exchange options worldwide and was a partner in the institutional hedge fund business. He retired in 1996 to pursue investments.

He is a principal of The Fitzroy Group, a firm that specializes in the development of residential real estate in London and invests both for its own account and in joint ventures with other institutions. He serves on a number of charitable boards of directors and is the Vice Chairman of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. He holds the McDermott Chair of Humanities and Public Affairs at the US Military Academy and is the author of a memoir, “If Not Now, When?,” to be released by Penguin in October 2008.

Jacobs also participates in the following organizations:

  • Member of the board of Xedar Corporation, 8310 South Valley Highway, Englewood, CO 80112
  • Member of the board of Visual Management Systems, 1000 Industrial Way North, Suite C, Toms River, NJ 08755
  • Member of the board of BioNeutral, NJ Institute of Technology, 211 Warren St, Newark, NJ 07103
  • Vice Chairman, Medal of Honor Foundation, 40 Patriots Point Rd, Mount Pleasant, SC 29464
  • Member of the Board of Trustees, National World War II Museum, 945 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70130
  • McDermott Chair of Politics at the US Military Academy, Department of Social Sciences, West Point, NY 10996