Bengals give back to Airborne vet

He did what they haven’t done, but they did what he couldn’t do.
Veteran Karl Crooks was in the Army from 1985-90 and injured his back jumping out of airplanes as part of the 82nd Airborne.
“We wanted to do this for him,” LSU Eunice head coach Jeff Willis said as his baseball team hustled last week to paint Crooks’ home.
“He sacrificed for us and we wanted to give back and try to help pay back a little something that can’t be repaid.
“Our players understand what he did for us as a veteran,” Willis said. “It is important for them to have a sense of servant hood in the community.”
His back issues worsened over the decade after leaving the service and Crooks’ second back surgery occurred the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 at Lourdes in Lafayette.
“I was on the table when the towers were hit,” Crooks said. ‘The first thing I saw coming out was all that on the television.”
Crooks moved to Eunice in 2007 and his home needed painting after removing the bad siding.
“I have trouble accepting help so my first response was to tell Coach Willis no,” Crooks said. “He talked me into because the team wanted to help.”
The LSU Eunice baseball team scrapped and sanded all the old paint away and then repainted the home to look like new.
“I can’t begin to say how great this is,” the veteran said with a smile. “I didn’t expect all of this.
“They worked hard and did a really good job,” Crooks said. “No one complained, they just went to work.”
Crooks said he hasn’t been a baseball fan, but he plans to follow the Bengals as much as he can now.
“After all they did for me, I think I have to watch some LSUE games now.”