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Drew Brooks

  • Communications Manager, Carrier
Belmont
As seen in: Chicago Tribune, U.S. News and World Report, Military.com, Washington Times, The Charlotte Observer, WRAL-TV (Raleigh, NC), Anchorage Daily News, Military Times, Government Technology, Stars and Stripes and
Covers:  north carolina national guard, nc military, fort bragg, army, air force, defense, military, veterans
Communications manager. Former @NGAUS1878 @fayobserver @goupstate @shelbystar. @UofSC alum
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Limestone recruit Jesse Olsen knows about overcoming adversity

Limestone recruit Jesse Olsen knows about overcoming adversity

Spartanburg Herald-Journal — The 18-year-old from Altamonte Springs, Fla. was co-captain of his high school football team and a key member of the weightlifting team. He's an Eagle Scout and was a member of his school's homecoming court and a photographer for the school paper. But that's not what sets Olsen, who will be a freshman at Limestone College this fall, apart from his fellow students. In just a few short years, Olsen took control of his health by losing more than 100 pounds, watched his mom battle cancer while in a three-month-long coma and then lost his home when the family was evicted.
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Lower education level a risk for Spartanburg

Lower education level a risk for Spartanburg

Spartanburg Herald-Journal — Late last week, the annual "A Stronger Nation through Higher Education" report was released by the Lumina Foundation. The study serves as a warning that the state needs significantly more graduates to meet future workforce needs and that attainment varies greatly across the Palmetto State. The Lumina Foundation is based in Indiana and is a nationally recognized, independent group committed to increasing the number of Americans with degrees in higher education to 60 percent by 2025. In South Carolina, only 34.2 percent of the workforce - defined as adults between the ages of 25 and 64 - has at least an associate degree, according to the report, which was compiled using the latest data from the U.S.
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VCOM encouraging military veterans to apply

VCOM encouraging military veterans to apply

Spartanburg Herald-Journal — Years of Army training had prepared him for the worst of war, but there was nothing he could do to save a friend, a Navy corpsman who had been shot during a battle in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The loss of his friend pushed Maxwell to better himself and set him on a path that has led him to the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine's Carolinas Campus. At 39-years-old and with a wife and two children, Maxwell isn't your typical college student. His peers are in their mid-20s and most came to campus fresh from another school.
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$1.6M settlement proposed in Cleveland Park train derailment

$1.6M settlement proposed in Cleveland Park train derailment

Spartanburg Herald-Journal — Late last month, lawyers representing both sides of a dispute over the Cleveland Park miniature train derailment opened mediation in Greenville by watching video of the crash shot on a passenger's iPhone. Nearly eight hours later, and with family and friends of the crash victims looking on, the two sides emerged with an agreement that effectively ends more than two years of legal wrangling. The proposed $1.6 million settlement still has to be approved by a Circuit Court judge, according to lawyers for the families injured in the crash who discussed the settlement with the Herald-Journal on Friday.
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Wounded warrior Army Spc. Willie Stewart hailed as a hero

Wounded warrior Army Spc. Willie Stewart hailed as a hero

Fayetteville Observer — Wounded warrior Army Spc. Willie Stewart hailed as a hero Army Spc. Willie Stewart wants a cigarette, but he can't find the words. Instead, the Fayetteville native turns toward his father and taps on his arm. "Do you need a drink?" James Wilburn guesses. A shake of Stewart's head and the guesses continue until, a minute later, Wilburn is lighting a cigarette in his son's mouth. Less than a year ago, it would have been absurd to think Wilburn, who suffered a heart attack in early 2012, would be the one nursing his son.
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Battle for Ghazni: Fort Bragg soldiers work against time to bring restive province under control

Battle for Ghazni: Fort Bragg soldiers work against time to bring restive province under control

Fayetteville Observer — Battle for Ghazni: Fort Bragg soldiers work against time to bring restive province under control ADINI, Afghanistan The first crack of gunfire came minutes after a small sandstorm lifted and soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team began making their way back to Combat Outpost Giro. Immediately, Afghan soldiers fighting alongside the paratroopers returned a barrage of fire from AK-47 rifles as a team of American sharpshooters set up on a small berm and other soldiers sought cover in the craggy rocks.
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With the Troops: As units roll out of Ramadi there is no letup in search for IEDs, ambushes

With the Troops: As units roll out of Ramadi there is no letup in search for IEDs, ambushes

Fayetteville Observer — With the Troops: As units roll out of Ramadi there is no letup in search for IEDs, ambushes BAGHDAD, Iraq - For weeks, soldiers with the 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team have watched from the Iraqi roadsides as convoys of U.S. troops headed south to Kuwait, the beginning of their journeys back to the United States. On Tuesday, the scene repeated itself again, as six convoys of Fort Bragg paratroopers passed through southwestern Baghdad. The soldiers, also members of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, left Ramadi - a city once proclaimed one of the deadliest in Iraq - early that morning.
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Fort Bragg soldiers were among the first into Iraq and now among the last to leave

Fort Bragg soldiers were among the first into Iraq and now among the last to leave

Fayetteville Observer — Fort Bragg soldiers were among the first into Iraq and now among the last to leave Fort Bragg Sgt. Kelly Carmody crossed himself as he stepped out of the armored vehicle and into the Iraqi sun. The paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team had just ridden through the streets of Baghdad while standing through the vehicle's hatch, his shotgun trained on the onlookers. Shortly after sunrise on this mid-November day, the convoy of U.S. troops arrived at a highway south of Baghdad, along a stretch of road that had gained infamy during the Iraq War.
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Unlikely fighter avenges American paratroopers killed by bomb

Unlikely fighter avenges American paratroopers killed by bomb

Fayetteville Observer — Unlikely fighter avenges American paratroopers killed by bomb GIRO, AFGHANISTAN A half hour after three U.S. paratroopers were killed by a roadside bomb May 7, an unlikely fighter took off to avenge them. An emotional Fazel Rahman, governor of Giro District in southern Ghazni province, insisted on leaving the safety of Combat Outpost Giro to track down the killers. The governor gathered a group of Afghan fighters and personally led them on foot toward a battle raging miles away between soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team and the Taliban.
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'Welcome Home': Obama thanks Fort Bragg soldiers, marks end of Iraq war

'Welcome Home': Obama thanks Fort Bragg soldiers, marks end of Iraq war

Fayetteville Observer — 'Welcome Home': Obama thanks Fort Bragg soldiers, marks end of Iraq war Addressing thousands of Fort Bragg service members Wednesday, President Obama marked a historic moment: the end of the war in Iraq. Today, U.S. Forces-Iraq will formally case its colors in a ceremony in Baghdad, Obama said. And over the next few days, the remaining soldiers in Iraq, some of whom are from Fort Bragg, will begin the final march out of the country. "For nearly nine years, our nation has been at war in Iraq.
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As wars wind down, 82nd Airborne Division preparing for widening role in global response

As wars wind down, 82nd Airborne Division preparing for widening role in global response

Fayetteville Observer — As wars wind down, 82nd Airborne Division preparing for widening role in global response When more than 1,300 paratroopers flew from Pope Air Field to Louisiana last month, they did something that no Fort Bragg unit had done for a decade. The soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, conducted a forcible-entry exercise at Fort Polk as part of a month-long Joint Readiness Training Exercise. The training represented a deviation from counter-insurgency, which has been a large part of Army training for the bulk of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Decorated Army doctor killed in Robeson County plane crash; was Fayetteville VA's acting chief of...

Decorated Army doctor killed in Robeson County plane crash; was Fayetteville VA's acting chief of...

Fayetteville Observer — Decorated Army doctor killed in Robeson County plane crash; was Fayetteville VA's acting chief of surgery A decorated Army doctor who served in some of the military's most elite commands was identified as the pilot killed in Sunday's plane crash in Robeson County. Retired Col. Virgil Thomas "Tom" Deal Jr. was acting chief of surgery at the Fayetteville VA Medical Center when he died, but he was well known throughout the military, especially within the special operations and medical communities. He had served as command surgeon of Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., and was commander of Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
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A year after the Iraq war, Fort Bragg troops in the thick of the fight look back on their role

A year after the Iraq war, Fort Bragg troops in the thick of the fight look back on their role

Fayetteville Observer — A year after the Iraq war, Fort Bragg troops in the thick of the fight look back on their role Army Col. Tommy Steele remembers the first days of the Iraq war, when he and other members of Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division were sent to find weapons of mass destruction. During the search, Steele said, the soldiers responded to the scene of a mass grave, the handiwork of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In the grave, Steele said, lay the body of a little girl, murdered in flip-flops and a flowery dress with her hands tied behind her back.
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Charges tarnish high-profile career of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Allen Sinclair

Charges tarnish high-profile career of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Allen Sinclair

Fayetteville Observer — Charges tarnish high-profile career of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Allen Sinclair Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Allen Sinclair was part of an elite group when he was charged with forcible sodomy and other violations of the military justice system. As a one-star general, Sinclair, 49, was among only 230 general officers that Congress authorizes for the Army, the nation's largest service branch. But the charges that now mar Sinclair's decorated career have him in an even rarer position among the few general officers alleged to have run afoul of military law in recent years. Sinclair, Brig. Gen. Roger Duff and Gen.
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Lawsuit says military created 'pervasive threat' to its own troops

Lawsuit says military created 'pervasive threat' to its own troops

Fayetteville Observer — Lawsuit says military created 'pervasive threat' to its own troops On one occasion, a former Fort Bragg soldier alleges, a soldier she had been dating raped her and beat her so severely that she suffered skull fractures. On another occasion, she says, the same soldier tied her to a tree and raped her. Instead of ensuring that the soldier faced justice, the former soldier says in court documents, her chain of command repeatedly advised her not to "open this can of worms" by pushing for charges. Sgt. 1st Class Tamika Lane also was raped twice while in the military.
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Article 32 hearing: Sinclair sexual charges detailed

Article 32 hearing: Sinclair sexual charges detailed

Fayetteville Observer — Article 32 hearing: Sinclair sexual charges detailed Maj. Gen. James L. Huggins had an unexpected visitor to his Kandahar office the night of March 19. An aide to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Allen Sinclair came to Huggins, who was then commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, distraught and "exceptionally emotional." That night set in motion an investigation into alleged misconduct by Sinclair, then deputy general for support of the 82nd Airborne Division and Regional Command-South in Afghanistan. Sinclair, 50, has since faced charges including forcible sodomy and wrongful sexual contact.
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Woman testifies about relationship with Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair

Woman testifies about relationship with Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair

Fayetteville Observer — Woman testifies about relationship with Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair When the woman at the center of the allegations against Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Allen Sinclair first met him, she was a star-struck lieutenant preparing for a 2008 deployment to Iraq. Then-Col. Sinclair worked closely with the soldier, now a captain, and the two eventually developed a romantic relationship that lasted three years. On Tuesday, the 32-year-old woman recounted intimate details of that relationship for an Article 32 hearing that will help decide whether Sinclair will stand trial on charges that include forcible sodomy, fraud and maltreatment of subordinates.
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Staff Sgt. Tracy Dice not considered war widow, despite loss of wife in Afghanistan

Staff Sgt. Tracy Dice not considered war widow, despite loss of wife in Afghanistan

Fayetteville Observer — Staff Sgt. Tracy Dice not considered war widow, despite loss of wife in Afghanistan RAEFORD - Clutching a copy of her marriage certificate and racked with grief, Tracy Dice steeled herself for a battle. Dice had just received a call from her in-laws, summoning her to their Hoke County home. Dice knew what lay ahead. Her wife, fellow National Guard member Donna Rae Johnson, failed to call her that October morning from Khost, Afghanistan. Worse, Dice learned through the Internet that three unidentified soldiers had been killed in the same area hours earlier. And now National Guard officers had shown up at her in-laws' home.
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