The publication is reproduced in full below:
RECOGNIZING CAPTAIN PAUL JACOBS
______
HON. TOM McCLINTOCK
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the remarkable life story of an American hero, Captain Paul Jacobs who passed away this past December. Captain Paul Jacobs served six combat tours in Vietnam, though it was his last tour that forever enshrined him as leading one of the U.S. Navy's greatest humanitarian efforts.
As U.S. Forces be withdrawing from South Vietnam in late April 1975, Captain Jacobs was then commanding the destroyer escort USS Kirk off the coast of Vietnam. To escape being captured by Communist North Vietnamese forces, South Vietnam helicopters loaded with refugees swarmed out toward the U.S. fleet. After hearing rumors that any South Vietnamese pilot captured by the North Vietnamese would be tortured, mutilated, and imprisoned, while their families would be made outcasts or worse, they fled desperately trying to escape that fate.
Upon realizing this, Captain Jacobs offered his ship as a safe haven for the South Vietnamese refugees. Helicopters began arriving and all hands aboard the Kirk--including Captain Jacobs--pushed unloaded helicopters over the side to make room for incoming ones. In all, 12 helicopters, packed with refugees, had landed on one of the Navy's smallest warships. Captain Jacobs then transformed the Kirk into a humanitarian aid station, providing food, comfort, medical care, relief from a blazing sun and hope to the men, women and children they'd rescued. It is no exaggeration to credit Captain Jacobs' steadfast leadership in the face of such hardship for saving the lives of those 30,000-plus Vietnamese sailors and refugees.
The United States Navy has a proud tradition of courageous, competent, indefatigable, and independent ship captains, who fear not what lies over the horizon, and who earn the respect and fidelity of their crews through their fair and steadfast leadership. Such will be Captain Paul Jacobs' legacy. In California's Fourth Congressional District and in Captain Jacob's childhood hometown in Maine, we share profound grief over his passing.
And so today, I rise to bid Captain Paul Jacobs--the United States Navy's most revered humanitarian--farewell. May he always have fair winds and following seas.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 83
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