[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 12 (Wednesday, January 19, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E47-E48]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         REMEMBERING LAWRENCE BROOKS, 112-YEAR-OLD WWII VETERAN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. TROY A. CARTER

                              of louisiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 19, 2022

  Mr. CARTER of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, today I remember Lawrence 
Brooks of New Orleans, the United States' oldest living World War II 
veteran, who was laid down in his eternal resting place on Saturday, 
January 15, 2022 at the age of 112.

[[Page E48]]

  Mr. Brooks was born in 1909 in Norwood, Louisiana and grew up outside 
of Stephenson, Mississippi. As part of a large family, his parents were 
sharecroppers, and then worked at a sawmill during the Great 
Depression.
  He was drafted into the Army at 21 in 1940 and was a participant in 
the famed Louisiana Maneuvers, where hundreds of thousands of soldiers 
conducted readiness exercises at home to prepare a response to 
Germany's invasion of Poland and France.
  After his required one-year service, Brooks was originally discharged 
and returned to New Orleans. However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor 
he re-enlisted. As he himself put it, after Pearl Harbor, ``There was 
no question'' that he would continue his service.
  He joined the 91st Engineer Battalion, a unit comprised of 1,193 
Black enlisted soldiers and 25 white officers. Soon, the unit boarded a 
converted ocean liner in New York and headed to the South Pacific.
  After an extended voyage due to dodging submarines, the 91st arrived 
in Queensland, Australia, an Allied Forces defensive base in the war 
against Japan.
  Private First-Class Brooks fondly remembers the Australian people's 
acceptance of the Black soldiers and the equal treatment they 
experienced without the specter of segregation.
  Without Jim Crow, Brooks made white friends, and attended dance 
halls, cinemas and hotels freely--freedoms he had never experienced 
before.
  Brooks did not see combat during this deployment, instead serving as 
a staff member to officers, lieutenants, and captains.
  While the white officers ate and lived separately from the Black 
soldiers, the private said he never experienced discrimination or 
racism during his service.
  Their battalion was also tasked with building several buildings, 
hospitals, roads, housing, and recreation centers throughout Horn 
Island, Papua-New Guinea and the Philippines, dodging Japanese bomb 
raids.
  Brooks' unit left the South Pacific in 1944 and he left the service a 
year later. Many of his stories focus on the positive--a sign of his 
outlook on life.
  He received the Good Conduct Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, and 
Presidential Unit Medal. He wanted to attend college, but he never 
received his GI benefits--an injustice tragically felt by many Black 
veterans of the Second World War. His daughter Vanessa Brooks says that 
he was also never offered a low-interest bank loan or a reduced down 
payment for a house.
  Asked in late 2021 what he would like his legacy to be, he said, ``I 
would like to be remembered as a strong man. A good soldier.''
  He certainly will be.
  Mr. Brooks was a local celebrity, and in 2021 for his 112th birthday 
he was honored with a drive-through party. He danced on his porch 
during a serenade serenaded by the World War II museum's musical trio, 
the Victory Belles.
  A military flyover flew above his Central City home in New Orleans.
  He loved the New Orleans Saints and spent this past holiday season 
cheering them on with family.
  Mr. Brooks lost his original Army uniform during Hurricane Katrina, 
but was presented with an authentic reproduction and his old unit's 
badge last November.
  His family says they plan to bury Mr. Brooks in his replicate 
uniform, as was his request.
  My thoughts are with the Brooks family as they say goodbye to their 
beloved patriarch.
  I pray that Mr. Lawrence Brooks is at peace after his 112 years of 
life. We are all indebted to his service and should be inspired by this 
``good soldier's'' positivity and zest for life. I know I am.
  Rest in God's peace, Lawrence Brooks.

                          ____________________