Category: Geopolitical Affairs

Vincent K. Brooks
General (U.S. Army, Retired)

Vincent K. Brooks is a career Army officer who recently retired from active duty as the four-star general in command of all U.S. Forces in Korea, where he concurrently commanded United Nations Command as well as the Republic of Korea – U.S. Combined Forces Command comprising over 650,000 Koreans and Americans under arms.

General Brooks, who goes by “Vince,” is a 1980 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the first class to include women, and he led the 4,000 cadets as the cadet brigade commander or “First Captain.” A history-maker, Brooks is the first African American to have been chosen for this paramount position, and he was the first cadet to lead the student body when women were in all four classes (freshman or “plebe” to senior or “first classman”). He is also the eighth African American in history to attain the military’s top rank – fourstar general in the United States Army.

He has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; a Master of Military Art and Science from the prestigious U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; was a National Security Fellow at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government; and holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from the New England School of Law.

Widely respected as a speaker and leader of cohesive, innovative organizations, within and beyond the military, his areas of expertise are: leadership in complex organizations, crisis leadership, and building cohesive trust-based teams, national security, policy, strategy, international relations, military operations, combating terrorism and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, diversity and inclusion. He is a combat veteran and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Vince is from a career military family and claims Alexandria, Virginia as home given the long roots in maternal and paternal branches of the family tree. Vince is married to Carol P. Brooks, MA, DSc. a retired Physical Therapist and currently an adult Educator. The two reside in Austin, Texas.