Vincent Brooks
Brigadier General
U.S. Army

Brigadier General Vincent Brooks is the featured speaker on the second day of NACDA's 41st Annual Convention.

Brooks was the U.S. Army's deputy director of operations during the war in Iraq, serving as spokesperson of the country's main force in the Middle East, the United States Central Command, which had approximately 250,000 troops stationed in Iraq. Due to his charisma and speaking ability, the media prefer Brooks' briefings to those of other spokespersons.

During this time, Brooks was often referred to as "the face of the U.S. military. The Central Command is one of nine U.S. combatant commands that answer directly to the president and the secretary of Central Command, defense. Its territory includes 25 nations in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Brooks, an African-American, was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and grew up in California. He attended the U.S. Military Academy, graduating at the top of his class in 1980. He became the first African-American in the Academy's history to be named cadet brigade commander (the top-ranking cadet), and led more than 4,000 cadets during his senior year. He later earned a master's degree in military art and science from the School of Advanced Military Studies at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Kansas, and studied for a year as a national security fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Massachusetts.

Brooks was a commander for the U.S. Third Army in Kuwait during the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq and led 3,000 soldiers in a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo in 2001. During his career, Brooks completed assignments with the 82nd Airborne Division, First Infantry Division (Forward) and the First Cavalry Division. He also served at the Pentagon with the army deputy chief of staff for operations and as an aide to the army vice chief of staff.

In 1999, Brooks graduated from the Army War College, in Washington, D.C. In 2002, as the youngest nominee ever to appear, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brigadier general.