Lectureship to feature Medal of Honor recipient, NBC analyst

Jack Jacobs

Medal of Honor recipient and NBC military analyst Jack Jacobs will be the seventh speaker in Darlington School’s annual Class of 1953 Lectureship Series. He will address students, faculty and alumni on March 18 at 9:15 a.m. in Morris Chapel.

According to class agent Mike Luxenberg (’53), the lectureship was established in April 2003 to commemorate the class’ 50th reunion. “It was a wonderful opportunity for each of us to help Darlington continue its tradition of providing an outstanding education for all students, and also a means for us to say ‘thank you’ for the fine education we received at Darlington,” Luxenberg said.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Jacobs holds his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Rutgers University. He entered the U.S. Army in 1966, serving as a platoon leader in the 82^nd Airborne Division, executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 7^th Infantry Division, and commanded the 4^th Battalion 10^th Infantry in Panama. A member of the faculty of the U.S. 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, D.C. 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. In his non-military career, 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 also served as a managing director of Bankers Trust, where he ran foreign exchange options worldwide and was a partner in the institutional hedge fund business. Jacobs 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.

Jacobs is probably best known for his work as an on-camera analyst for NBC. He is also the author of the memoir “If Not Now, When?” and serves on a number of charitable boards of directors, is the vice chairman of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation, and holds the McDermott Chair of Humanities and Public Affairs at the U.S. Military Academy.