Medal of Honor Recipient Addresses Legion’s Convention

WILDWOOD – American veterans met in France 100 years ago to form a group that would represent World War I veterans.
That March, Congress chartered the American Legion, an organization which would go on to influence veterans’ rights and push for the GI Bill.
New Jersey’s division of the American Legion celebrated that milestone June 14-16 in Wildwood during their annual conference.
In 2018, Garden State Legionnaires marked a different centenary that was specific to Wildwood. The first American Legion conference at the Wildwoods Convention Center was held in 1918, a year before the American Legion officially chartered.
On June 14, the first day of the 2019 conference, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Jack H. Jacobs addressed the Legionnaires. He noted how much military service has changed from his childhood during World War II, to his time in the Vietnam War, to today.
“I had friends who have had fathers who had missing arms and legs and eyes, and I had friends who had no fathers at all because they were killed in action during the Second World War,” Jacobs said. “Every single household had made a contribution to the defense of this country.
“And today,” he continued, “We decided that we’re going to outsource the defense of the Republic to a very small number of young men and women.”
Jacobs said the “gap between those who are serving and those who are being served” has never been larger than it is today. As an example, he said, more people were killed in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, than were killed at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
“And yet, on the eighth of December, everybody ran off to go defend the country,” Jacobs said. “The same thing didn’t happen on Sept. 12.”
Jacobs lamented that the last time the Army was this small was in 1940.
“I don’t think that we can defend the U.S. against the multifarious enemies we have, with the small number of people we have,” he continued. “At the end of the day, some 19-year-old kid with a bayonet has to stand his ground and hold what we’ve achieved.”
Jacobs said past veterans succeeded in establishing their rights, but today’s “young people” have to do their part in holding onto those rights.
“If you don’t hold onto it, then you will have wasted all those assets and all those lives in order to achieve it in the first place,” he concluded.
Jacobs is a New Jersey native who, after graduating from Rutgers, enlisted in the Army in 1966. Two years later, he was a first lieutenant advising a South Vietnamese infantry battalion in the Mekong Delta when he was wounded in a firestorm.
“Although badly hurt, as well, and barely able to see, Jacobs took command and withdrew the unit to safety,” said state American Legion spokesperson Gary Cooper. “He returned to the scene of the attack several times, as intense fire continued around him, to rescue the wounded and perform first aid.”
Jacobs saved 14 lives that day.
He “stopped only when he was no longer capable of moving; the extremity of his wounds was such that he would never regain his senses of taste or smell,” Cooper said.
Jacobs earned the Medal of Honor in 1969 and also earned three Bronze Stars and two Silver Stars over the next 20 years he served.
Jacobs congratulated the state veterans on their 101st convention.
“Thank you, not just for what you’ve done,” he said, “But more importantly, what you’re going to continue to do.”
Two Cape May County veterans were honored for their volunteer work helping veterans: Johnnie Walker of the Cape Veterans Advisory Council (CVAC) was honored as Top South Jersey Supporting Partner – Employment, Homeless, and Education Committee, and Aaron Wittkamp Colwell of American Legion Post 239, Tuckahoe, was honored as Top Hospital Donor Post for Cape May County – Rehabilitation Hospital Committee.
The next day, June 15, the American Legion parade went down Atlantic Avenue from North Wildwood to Wildwood.
“Everybody who is lucky enough to live in a free country owes it something in the form of service,” Jacobs said. “God bless you all for what you’ve done and God bless America.”
To contact Taylor Henry, email thenry@cmcherald.com.