Tom Sileo (32 page)

Brendan was the first of the Looney kids to get married, and that night he laughed and sang with his brothers and sisters just like on those memorable summer days growing up in suburban Maryland and hanging out in the “cool room.” They knew how hard it was for Brendan to leave his new wife and deploy overseas and were determined to make him happy by welcoming Amy into the cool room, too.

After dinner was over, Janet went back out to the balcony to call her daughter.

“Hi, Ryan,” Janet said. “Did you put Maggie to bed?”

“Hey mom, yes, she said her prayers and went to sleep,” Ryan said in her strong, distinctive voice. “How's the wedding? Are you and dad holding up okay?”

Janet's voice, normally strong like her daughter's, began to crack.

“It's been hard, honey,” her mom said. “Brendan told us he's going to Iraq on Monday.”

“Mom, Brendan's going to be okay,” Ryan said. “Trav won't let anything happen to him.”

“He gave me his trident pin,” she said. “He said Travis will always be in his heart.”

After they said their good-byes, Ryan sent a text message to her dad. The father and daughter had grown even closer after Travis was killed, and the three surviving Manions had all sworn to stay strong together as one tight-knit family unit.

“Is mom okay?” she wrote.

“Tough night,” Tom wrote back a few minutes later.

Tom and Janet, worn down emotionally, went downstairs to Pusser's, the large waterfront bar and restaurant below the ballroom, to bid farewell to Brendan and Amy as the new couple joined the after-party. The Manions navigated through the loud, crowded
bar, where a large wedding group was laughing, drinking, and telling funny stories.

They discovered Brendan, Steve, and Billy's Navy lacrosse coach, Richie Meade, buying drinks for the entire wedding party. He gave Brendan and Amy a bottle of champagne, which neither intended to drink that night but wound up sipping from anyway. But when they saw Tom and Janet Manion walk in, almost everyone in the loud bar area, especially those who knew Travis, rushed to offer them a drink.

When the shots of Patrón were brought, Brendan proposed a toast.

“Let's have a drink for Travis,” he said.

“Naah, let's have one for you and Amy,” Tom said to Brendan. “Travis would have wanted this night to be all about you.”

Janet, reaching deep down for one last bit of strength after an exhausting day, somehow came up with the perfect toast.

“Brendan and Amy, we know Travis is here celebrating with you tonight,” she said. “He loves you, we love you, and we wish you all the best.”

“Hear, hear!” Brendan, Amy, and the wedding party said in unison.

After the toast, Janet couldn't help but peek over at the table where Travis, Brendan, and their friends had drunk and sung until 2:00 a.m. after the Mathews's wedding in December.
He was just here
.

This time, the Manions retired for the night long before 2:00 a.m., when Brendan and Amy finally left Pusser's. Had it been a normal wedding night, the new couple probably would have headed upstairs earlier, but with Brendan on his way to Iraq, they wanted to have as much fun as possible with friends and family. Later, when her husband embarked on his SEAL missions, Amy would return to San Diego to become one of the thousands of young military spouses with a loved one deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Waking up late on Sunday morning, Brendan and Amy lay in bed watching a movie, refusing to answer their phones or look at the clock. A wedding brunch with relatives downstairs at Pusser's was scheduled, and the newlyweds knew they would spend most of the day going through gifts to make sure Amy knew who to send thank-you cards to while Brendan was away, but these couple of hours would be for them and them only.

As they watched TV, the new bride began to sense that something was bothering Brendan, who was much quieter than usual. When she asked him what was wrong, Brendan described his emotional conversation with the Manions at the wedding. After comforting her husband, Amy told Brendan that she was proud of him.

Despite their best efforts to stop the clock, Monday arrived, and it was time for the Navy SEAL and his new bride to separate their aching hearts by thousands of miles. As Amy prepared to leave first for a work-related conference, she tried to keep her composure because Brendan and several of his family members were to accompany her to the airport. Still, these were the last few minutes the bride and groom could spend alone, and Amy couldn't help but shed some tears.

Amy knew Brendan was intelligent and extremely well trained. Like Travis, her husband was a compassionate warrior who deeply respected the Iraqi people. But Amy also knew Brendan's deployment to Iraq would be dangerous, and she felt that she had to say something before he left.

“Don't try to be a hero over there,” Amy said. “Just be my husband.”

Brendan embraced his new bride and promised to be careful.

“I don't want to leave, even though it has to be done,” he said. “But I wouldn't want to come home to anyone but you.”

After telling each other “I love you” and sharing one last hug and kiss, it was time to go to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. When they arrived Amy, with tears filling the eyes Brendan
would dream about in the months ahead, spoke three words before heading inside. “See you later,” she said.

“See you later,” the unusually emotional Navy SEAL responded.

Back in Doylestown it was once again dinnertime, which meant little Maggie was about to say her prayers. Right after she asked the Lord to bless her Uncle Travis, Ryan asked her to add another prayer for Brendan.

Maggie nodded her head and smiled at her mom.

“God bless Uncle Travis,” she said. “And God bless Brendan too.”

A few hours later Brendan sat on a plane, unable to communicate with Amy. Surrounded by married couples on the commercial flight, Brendan was filled with the same empty feeling that often consumed him whenever he and Amy were apart.

This would be the toughest challenge yet. Forty-eight hours after marrying the woman he had met and quickly fallen in love with five years earlier, Brendan was on his way to Iraq. Though leaving his bride was difficult, Brendan was thankful he had been able to marry the girl of his dreams. Travis, who had often spoken of someday meeting the right woman and starting a family, never had that opportunity.

With the plane ascending, Brendan looked down at his shiny new wedding ring, which signified the love he shared with Amy. Then he looked at the black-and-silver bracelet on his right wrist, which signified the memory of a close friend he would never forget.

11

MOVING FORWARD

“A
s a warrior, he strode like a giant across the battlefield of the eastern portion of Al Anbar Province.”

In 2008, then US Marine Lieutenant General John Allen visited Doylestown to present the Silver Star and Bronze Star with Valor to First Lieutenant Travis Manion's family.

“When his unit was ambushed on that fateful day in April in Fallujah, when the Doc and his fellow Marine were shot down, Travis went forward,” General Allen said. “Under fire, Travis, absolutely fearless in his resolve to save his fellow warriors, left the safety of a covered position to suppress the enemy and extricate his wounded, and when he was hit, Travis was moving forward, selflessly exposing himself to enemy fire.”

Brendan never had the chance to say good-bye to Travis in person. General Allen, who had been leading US Marines in Fallujah on April 29, 2007, did. As Commandant of the US Naval Academy from 2001 to 2003, Allen knew Travis and shared another connection to the Manion family through Tom's good friend General Dave Papak.

“I was unprepared for seeing Travis that day,” Allen later wrote to Papak, who had helped with the notification process and Travis's homecoming. “Not unprepared for the circumstances or the
human pieces of this, but seeing one of these young mids lying there. For me, the circle is now complete.”

In 2007, Travis left an indelible mark on a general who would later assume command of all US forces in Afghanistan.

“2007 was a remarkable year in Al Anbar. . . . It was the year that began the turning of that province, and in many ways the remainder of the war in Iraq followed what began in Al Anbar,” General Allen now said. “Travis was a part of that . . . a big part of what became known, and what historians are now calling ‘The Turning.'”

In 2008, Brendan picked up where his Naval Academy roommate had left off.

Lieutenant Brendan Looney, Honor Man of US Navy SEAL BUD/S Class 265 and a recent graduate of SQT Class 266, was tracing the footsteps of Travis, who the general said “strode like a giant across the eastern portion of Al Anbar province.” Newly married and in peak physical condition after earning his gold trident, Brendan eagerly joined SEAL Team Three in the middle of the elite special operations group's Iraq deployment.

“Congratulations to the groom,” said Lieutenant Rob Sarver, who was already deployed and had not been able to leave Iraq to attend his friend's wedding. “It's really good to see you.”

“It's good to be here,” Brendan said. “Let's get to it.”

Brendan and Sarver had deployed to Fallujah before, but under vastly different circumstances, in 2006 as Navy officers. After transferring to special operations and enduring the rigors of BUD/S and SQT, being back in Iraq together as Navy SEALs was a special experience. Sarver, who had broken the tragic news after Travis was killed, also knew that for Brendan, being in Fallujah carried added significance.

Thanks to the sacrifices of Travis's MiTT team and countless more American, Iraqi, and coalition troops who served in Al Anbar, the streets of Fallujah were much quieter than in the previous year. To be sure, some insurgents and terrorists still remained in the
city and surrounding region. But the progress made was remarkable, and Brendan could now see the fruits of his Naval Academy roommate's labor, which General Allen had noted in his presentation speech, up close.

“His training skills, his leadership, his personal example of heroism. . . . All these influences helped shape an entire battalion of this division,” General Allen had said. “And when Travis was killed in action, fighting alongside his beloved Marines and Iraqi warriors, the Iraqis reacted by naming one of their combat outposts for Travis. In all the time Americans have served with Iraqi forces, this has only happened twice.”

One of Brendan and Sarver's primary responsibilities was meeting with key Iraqi leaders at various combat outposts to ensure that the critical area continued on a positive track. While most Americans probably don't think of Navy SEALs as sitting down for meetings with foreign soldiers or politicians, the two officers spent many hours listening to Iraqis and giving them advice on how to work not only with US troops, but also with rival tribes and factions. Like Travis, Brendan cared for the Iraqi people and wanted to see the country succeed, which would be impossible without a relatively stable Al Anbar province.

Brendan e-mailed Janet from Iraq on September 10, 2008, the day before the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:

          
Mrs. Manion,

                
It was great seeing you guys at the wedding. I am glad you guys were able to make it. It meant a lot to both me and Amy to see you both there.