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Photos by Jon Anderson.
Roy Brook accepts the 2023 Freedom Award at the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce’s July luncheon at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Hoover on July 20.
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Photos by Jon Anderson.
Military supporter Roy Brook stands with the honor guard at the 2020 Alabama Veteran War on the Greens golf tournament at the Oxmoor Valley golf course in Birmingham.
Normally, the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce and Hoover Veterans Committee give out their annual Freedom Award to someone who lives or works in the city.
But this year, the two groups decided to honor a man who “works” in Hoover in a different way.
Veterans Committee members chose Roy Brook, a Bessemer resident who often is referred to in the Birmingham-Hoover area as the “flag man,” to receive the Freedom Award, which is given to a community role model who supports their local, state or federal government, promotes the ideals of freedom and supports the U.S. military.
Brook can be seen at most of the big events in Hoover, proudly but humbly holding a U.S. flag on a pole. He goes to city festivals, sporting events, fundraisers, parades, fire station dedications, groundbreakings, chamber luncheons and Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Fourth of July celebrations and remembrance ceremonies.
Sometimes he just stands at busy intersections in and around the Birmingham-Hoover metro area, displaying the flag for all to see, but mostly he attends a lot of funerals for military veterans and first responders.
He doesn’t do it just in Hoover. He goes all over the metro area and to other parts of the state as well. He has even carried his flag to funerals and events out of state to honor special friends and loved ones.
Sometimes, he doesn’t know the deceased veterans or their families at all. He just hears about their death or reads about it and goes to show his support. Sometimes, he’s the only person there other than family.
Photos by Jon Anderson.
Military supporter Roy Brook stands with the honor guard at the 2020 Alabama Veteran War on the Greens golf tournament at the Oxmoor Valley golf course in Birmingham.
Retired U.S Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Pocopanni, chairman of the Hoover Veterans Committee, presented Brook the Freedom Award at the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce’s July luncheon at the Embassy Suites Hotel on John Hawkins Parkway.
Pocopanni recalled this past year when he went to the funeral of a friend, a lieutenant colonel who flew F-4 fighter bombers with him in the Air National Guard. It was pouring rain on a cold December day, and when Pocopanni drove up to the funeral home in Trussville, he spotted a lone figure, standing at attention in a raincoat and holding the U.S. flag at the entrance. It was Brook, and Brook didn’t even know the lieutenant colonel who died.
“It got me. It hit me hard,” Pocopanni said.
Brook also maintains two U.S. flags on both sides of the Jonathan Michael (Mike) Gilotti Memorial Bridge on Alabama 150 near the entrance to the Lake Cyrus subdivision, where the U.S. Army veteran was killed outside his home in 2016. He tries to replace the flags as they get worn and tattered by weather, and he mounted spotlights to shine a light on them at night, per proper flag protocol.
“He’s a true American patriot,” Pocopanni said. “He’s a symbol and icon about what’s right about America. … His sense of patriotism is a model for all of us to emulate. I’m proud to call him my friend.”
Brook on Thursday said he appreciates all the support that has been shown to him by the people in Hoover — from the mayor and City Council members to the first responders, other city employees, chamber officials and residents. “It’s been the most rewarding experience,” he said.
Brook said he has great respect for the U.S. flag and the things for which it stands and simply likes to show support for his country and honor people with the flag at the same time.
“It reminds me of the big price that was paid for America to get in the position it has been in,” Brook said. “I’m not really high [on] where we are right now, but we’ll be back. That flag represents the strength we have to come back from our adversity.”
Brook said he started displaying the flag publicly in 2016 after being at home on Memorial Day and watching people on TV disrespecting the flag. It bothered him, so he took a flag on a pole and walked up and down the median of U.S. 280 at its intersection with Interstate 459.
Soon thereafter, he started going to community events and roadways in Hoover because the city is close to his home and he knows a lot of people there, but later he branched out to other cities as well.
When he’s along roads these days, he doesn’t walk with the flag as much. Instead, he mostly stands still, knowing people will still pass by him, he said. He also tries to maintain a safe distance away from traffic, he said.
When he’s at funerals, he usually hangs back away from the main area of activity because he doesn’t want to invade people’s privacy or times of sorrow, he said. That is, unless he’s invited to come closer or to join a group, he said.
He has been asked to leave funerals or memorials a few times, and he respects those wishes and is OK with it, he said. But 99% of the time, people wave and welcome him, he said.
Brook in 2019 said he has a heart for people who have gone through loss. At age 17, he lost both his parents, and he remembers the help given to him by loved ones during that time. He realized the importance of being there for other people in difficult times, and he wants to do that for others, he said.
“I want them to know someone they don’t know loves them,” he said.
Brook isn’t a veteran, but one of his two sons, Jack Aaron, has served in the Army, and Brook is proud of him, he said.
When told he had been chosen to receive this year’s Hoover Freedom Award, Brook explained he isn’t a veteran like most of the award winners in past years have been, but that doesn’t matter, Pocopanni said.
“You don’t have to be a veteran to be a patriot,” Pocopanni said. “What he does to honor our veterans and to honor our fallen warriors is just phenomenal.”
Brook said he doesn’t keep count of how many places he has been with the flag. Sometimes, he may go out with it one or two times a week. Other times, he might go to several events on the same day.
Brook said he doesn’t consider the flag he displays his own.
“It’s our flag. I’m just honored to carry it,” he said. “I’ll continue to do it as long as I’m physically able. It’s just been a real honor. When I stand, I stand for you.”
