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Kamp Fender
Roy Brook of Vestavia carries an American flag and a flag commemorating fallen officers in front of the Vestavia Police Department during the groundbreaking of a Law Enforcement Memorial Garden on Friday, February 1, 2019. (Kamp Fender)
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Retired U.S Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Pocopanni, chairman of the Hoover Veterans Committee, left, presents Roy Brook the 2023 Freedom Award at the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce’s July luncheon at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Roy Brook stands with an American flag at the corner of 14th Street South and 1st Avenue South in downtown Birmingham before the start of the 72nd annual Veterans Day Parade on Monday, Nov. 11, 2019. Photo by Erin Nelson
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Photo 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, Alabama, on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
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Photo 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, Alabama, on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
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Photo courtesy of Cindy Peek
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Heather Gilotti stands with Roy Brook at a blood drive held in honor of Gilotti's late husband, Mike Gilotti, at the Hoover Recreation Center on Friday, Jan. 29, 2021. Mike Gilotti was killed outside his home in the Lake Cyrus community in Hoover, Alabama, when he found someone breaking into his vehicle in January 2016.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Roy Brook, second from left, accepts the 2023 Freedom Award from the Hoover Veterans Committee and Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce at the chamber's July luncheon at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
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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, Alabama, on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Roy Brook, at left, accepts the 2023 Freedom Award from the Hoover Veterans Committee and Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce at the chamber's July luncheon at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, July 20, 2023. He is pictured here with his wife Dawn, grandson Dylan, daughter-in-law Ashleigh, grandson Ryder and son Adam.
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Photo by Erin Nelson. Starnes Media
HV chamber lunch
David Custred speaks with Roy Brooks at the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon held at the Hoover Met Complex on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
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Roy Brook stands with a U.S. flag across from a group of protesters at the corner of U.S. 31 and Municipal Drive in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, May 31, 2020. Brook said that at one point during the day, a protester threatened to take his flag and burn it.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
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The city of Hoover, Alabama broke ground for the city's 11th fire station in the Trace Crossings community on Monday, Dec. 9, 2019. Shown here, from left, are Roy Brook, Hoover Council President Gene Smith and Signature Homes CEO Dwight Sandlin.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
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Roy Brook stands with a U.S. flag across from a group of protesters at the corner of U.S. 31 and Municipal Drive in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, May 31, 2020. Brook said one of the protesters threatened to take his flag and burn it.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
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Military supporter Roy Brook displays the U.S. flag at the 2020 Alabama Veteran War on the Greens golf tournament at the Oxmoor Valley golf course in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020.
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Neal Embry Starnes Media
Roy Brook stands with the American flag at "I Love America Night" festivities at Wald Park in Vestavia Hills on June 24.
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Photo by Erin Nelson. Photo by Erin Nelson
Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce President Michelle Hawkins stands beside Roy Brooks following the Patriot Day Remembrance Ceremony with the cities of Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills and Homewood at Vestavia Hills City Hall on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Shelley Shaw, Mike Shaw, Sarah Beasley, Henry Preston, and Roy Brook stand for a group photo at the corner of 14th Street South and 1st Avenue South in downtown Birmingham before the start of the 72nd annual Veterans Day Parade on Monday, Nov. 11, 2019. Photo by Erin Nelson
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Neal Embry
Mayor Ashley Curry, left, presents the Flag Day proclamation to Roy Brook, who displays the U.S. flag around the Birmingham area.
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Kamp Fender
Roy Brook of Vestavia carries an American flag and a flag commemorating fallen officers in front of the Vestavia Police Department during the groundbreaking of a Law Enforcement Memorial Garden on Friday, February 1, 2019. (Kamp Fender)
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Neal Embry
Roy Brook holds the American flag outside the Veterans Day assembly at Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church on Nov. 8, 2018.
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Photo by Caleb Mullis. Starnes Media
Roy Brooks stands in the rain with an American flag during the July Fourth Festival in downtown Homewood, Monday, July 4, 2022. Photo by Caleb Mullis.
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 fun 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.
But 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.
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 Thursday at the Embassy Suites Hotel on John Hawkins Parkway.
Pocopanni recalled this past year when he went to the funeral of a friend and 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 he drove up to the funeral home in Trussville, he spotted a lone figure, standing at attention out in the rain in a raincoat 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 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 Hoover is close to his home and he knows a lot of people in Hoover, 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 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 other people, 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 he’s 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 in 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.”
