A native of Las Vegas, Brooks, a retired staff sergeant, led fellow Marines and other active-duty personnel as lead instructor for the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program with the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion. Brooks medically retired in 2005 after enduring combat injuries in Iraq.

Brooks has trained in martial arts since 1977, when he was just four years old. The AFKA, founded by Lawrence Arthur in 1975, is the latest organization to recognize Brooks, set to be recognized on Nov. 21 in Virginia.

“I’ve never had a press release like this before; I thought it was the coolest thing,” Brooks told the Standard-Examiner on Monday.

“Being a martial artist, I’ve studied a lot of different styles… when you go to (these) events, you meet different people, from different organizations literally throughout the world, so as we all come together, we get to know each other’s backgrounds because a lot of martial artists, especially some of the traditional martial artists, only kind of stay within their own organization’s paradigm, but when you get into this big Hall of Fame, you get to see the expansion beyond your own art.”

Brooks earned multiple Black Belts across four-plus decades of martial arts disciplines, including Tang Soo Do, Karate-Do, Bushinkai Ninjutsu, and Krav Haganah.

After serving his country, Brooks pursued martial arts further at the CRI Israel Counter Terrorism Training School, the UCF Executive Protection Security Team and in professional security. Brooks is currently a member of the Universal Martial Arts Hall of Fame (2026) and the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame (2025).

Brooks and his family recently moved to Utah from Las Vegas, where he’d spent most of his post-military career.

Brooks said he moved to Layton partly to leave his professional security career and help expand a relative’s dentistry business, CJ Dental Utah, in Bountiful. A trip to visit the operation included a surprise while scouring the housing market.

“I wanted to get out of Vegas because I’d been there for so long,” Brooks said. “When I decided on moving out here, I came out here to check out the practice, and I was looking for a house, and we’d found this beautiful house had opened up for rent here in Layton, and it just so happened the gentleman that owns the house is an Air Force officer, so as soon as I came to the house and he and I started talking, we just hit it off right from that – I felt God was leading me. This was perfect.”

For more information on the AFKA Hall of Fame Ceremony, visit goathonor.com/hall-of-fame.

Connect with Standard-Examiner sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net, X @ctbecker and Instagram @standardexaminersports.