22-02-2025
Vietnam War Navy SEAL returned for second tour in honor of friend killed in action
KINGSPORT, Tenn. (WJHL) — John Brooks was set to be drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War, but he had his sights set on becoming a Navy Frogman.
A Navy Frogman is commonly known now as a Navy SEAL, but no matter how you refer to the job, becoming one is no easy feat.
'We are the commandos that sneak in and sneak out. We're small units, small groups from four to 14 men. We're kind of a reconnaissance. We're like Army Rangers,' Brooks said. 'We find the enemy. We engage the enemy, and then we get out without a lot of casualties because we don't have that firepower that the larger enemy has.'
By the end of the 18-week training, the group of 100 was down to 25. He was shipped off to the Saigon area for six months as part of a group of 14 SEALs.
'The NVA, which stands for the North Vietnamese Army, they weren't around us too much then,' Brooks said. 'So we weren't having a whole lot of contact. We had a little bit of contact, no big firefights.'
But then that changed.
'March the 29th. We lost the heart and soul of our platoon,' Brooks tearfully recalled. 'He hit a landmine, anti-personnel mine. His name was Les Moe. He'd been over four times.'
Brooks believes his friend Les saved his life that day.
'Les saved a lot of peoples' lives because he was senior to a lot of people. And me, for one, we should have been running point,' Brooks said. 'He was running point because he felt like we didn't have the experience because it was a kind of pacified area. We didn't have a whole lot of encounters with the Viet Cong.'
After that, the platoon laid low as the war started to wind down, and Brooks went back home.
'I didn't feel like I was tested. I didn't feel like I was in that firefight that I wanted to be in. Maybe some of it was because of Les Moe,' said Brooks. 'But I went back as an advisor.'
Brooks couldn't return to a direct-action platoon so he spent 10 months advising Vietnamese SEALs.
'We were on one side of the river. It was night. We had our star lights scopes. We saw that it was the NVA, not the Viet Cong. This was an army. They had artillery. They were heavily armed. There was only 14 of us, two Americans, and the rest were South Vietnamese,' said Brooks. 'We, me in particular, wanted to open fire. This was a firefight I wanted to get in to see what I was made out of, to see if I had the right stuff. Well, the Vietnamese officers kept saying beaucoup, beaucoup, which means many, and they would not open fire. And to this day, I feel like maybe that was the Lord's way of taking care of me.'
But going back to his home country wasn't easy as a veteran of one of the most controversial wars in history.
'When I got back, I had to change out of my uniform in the restroom, in the airport,' Brooks recalled. 'I kind of just settled into the mindset, right or wrong, it's my country.'
That time in the military prepared him for serving students at Dobyns Bennett High School where he was a coach, teacher and guidance counselor.
'Dedication and strength of character and 'stick to it-ness' to make it through the training and to do my job in Vietnam,' he said. 'And so I felt like I was ready for the challenge… teaching would be a challenge.'
Despite all he's accomplished in the Navy and through being an educator, Brooks has one goal he's still working toward– hoping to live to be 100 years old.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
