{"id":10580,"date":"2020-08-29T22:22:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-30T05:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10580"},"modified":"2020-08-30T07:48:25","modified_gmt":"2020-08-30T14:48:25","slug":"post3-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10580","title":{"rendered":"“Send a Birthday Greeting to the United States\u2019 Oldest Living WWII Veteran” Smithsonian Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Nora McGreevy, August 27, 2020<\/p>\n

The National World War II Museum is asking well-wishers to send cards to Lawrence Brooks, who turns 111 this September<\/p>\n

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Lawrence Brooks, 110, pictured at a previous birthday celebration at the National World War II Museum(Image courtesy of the National World War II Museum)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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When Lawrence Brooks was a young soldier stationed in World War II\u2019s Pacific theater, he was assigned to a C-47 plane<\/a> tasked with carrying a shipment of barbed wire from Australia to New Guinea. Suddenly, one of the plane\u2019s engines went out.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Panicking, he, the pilot and co-pilot lobbed loads of wire into the ocean in hopes of stabilizing the craft. Brooks remembers joking that if the pilot jumped, he\u2019d grab onto him. After all, the plane was only equipped with two parachutes.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was a scary moment,\u201d he recounted in a 2015 oral history interview<\/a>. \u201cBut we made it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks survived that close call. Now, the 110-year-old is believed to be the United States\u2019 oldest living World War II veteran. And in just over two weeks, on Saturday, September 12, he\u2019ll turn 111.<\/p>\n

For the past five years, Brooks has celebrated<\/a> his birthday at the National World War II Museum<\/a> in his home city of New Orleans. This year, with partygoers unable to gather in person due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the museum is taking a different approach: namely, asking well-wishers to send the supercentenarian birthday cards via mail.<\/p>\n

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Brooks, pictured here in 1943, was drafted into the U.S. Army at age 31. (Courtesy of the National World War II Museum)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Lawrence Brooks (far right) attends his 110th birthday celebration. (Courtesy of the National WWII Museum)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Lawrence Brooks reads a birthday card at last year’s celebration. (Courtesy of the National WWII Museum)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In 1940, 31-year-old Brooks was drafted into the U.S. Army\u2019s 91st Engineer Battalion<\/a>. As Talia Lakritz reported for Insider<\/a> <\/em>last year, he was stationed mainly in New Guinea and the Philippines, working as a support worker and eventually achieving the rank of private first class.<\/p>\n

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National Geographic<\/a><\/em>\u2019<\/em>s Chelsea Brasted notes that Brooks, who is black, served in a battalion predominately made up of African American soldiers. For a time, he even worked as a servant for three white officers.<\/p>\n

During World War II, black soldiers<\/a> faced discrimination both at home and abroad. A particularly egregious example of racism within the military was the preferential treatment afforded to German prisoners of war, who were allowed to dine in restaurants across the Deep South even as African American soldiers were forced to eat out of sight in the kitchens, writes Matthew Taub for Time<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to war with Hitler, the world\u2019s most horrible racist, and we did so with a segregated army because, despite guarantees of equal treatment, this was still Jim Crow America,\u201d Robert Citino<\/a>, a senior historian at the WWII Museum, tells National Geographic<\/em>. \u201cAfrican Americans were still subject to all kinds of limitations and discrimination based on the color of their skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

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