[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 99 (Thursday, June 13, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E776]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IN RECOGNITION OF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS RECIPIENT AARON JACOBSON

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                           HON. SEAN P. DUFFY

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 13, 2019

  Mr. DUFFY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the heroism of 
WWII veteran, Aaron Jacobson, who through his actions was awarded the 
Distinguished Service Cross.
  Mr. Jacobson enlisted in the Army at the age of 32 and shipped off to 
fight against the evils of National Socialism in WWII. He landed on the 
beaches of Normandy and fought all the way through to the Battle of the 
Bulge, where he was awarded the second oak leaf cluster on his Purple 
Heart Award after his finger was severed by a German bullet.
  Mr. Jacobson's military records were destroyed in a series of fires. 
One took place in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center in St. 
Louis. His was among the roughly 16-18 million records containing 
individual stories of American servicemen destroyed in that fire. The 
other fire tragically took his home and the life of his brother.
  Aaron's family and friends spent tireless hours combing through 
records, newspaper articles, websites and their recollection of his 
personal stories to re-construct the events of that day. Although we do 
not have the exact wording of his citation, I would like to tell you 
what happened on the day that Mr. Jacobson earned his Distinguished 
Service Cross.
  On September 21, 1944, somewhere in the Parroy Forest of France, the 
313th Infantry Regiment, of the 79th Infantry Division, in which 
Private First Class Aaron Jacobson was serving, was mopping up a 
battlefield that had just been cleared. Suddenly, machine gun fire 
split the air and his men hit the ground. PFC Jacobson, without regard 
to his own life, low crawled towards a position from which he could 
flank the machine gun nest. As he approached the nest, he realized his 
rifle was full of mud and wouldn't fire. Undeterred, he fixed his 
bayonet and stabbed the rear guard of the nest. Using the firearm 
captured from the German solider he had just killed, he neutralized the 
remaining three Germans in the machine gun nest. PFC Aaron Jacobson's 
heroic actions that day saved many American lives, and we as a nation 
owe him a great debt of gratitude.

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