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Honor Julian Brennan by Helping Build Schools in Afghanistan

Honor Julian Brennan by Helping Build Schools in Afghanistan

Last night, I was honored to attend a memorial service at the Prospect Park Picnic House for Marine Lance Corporal Julian Brennan.  Julian grew up on 15th Street in Park Slope.  He was 25 when he was killed in Afghanistan last week.

The event was heartwrenching, of course.  It was impossible not to cry while listening to his friends talk about how Julian made them laugh ... or while reading the note he wrote to his mom for Christmas in 2005, wishing that he could be 5 years old again, so she could cradle his head in her arms.

But there was also tremendous inspiration, both in Julian's life, and in how his parents are responding to their almost unimaginable tragedy. Julian was a remarkable person, a gifted actor, who felt a call to service at the funeral for his grandfather, Marine who fought in WWII.  "The only way I think I can describe myself,” he wrote, “is as a guy who will go out of his way to make someone laugh, write a great song, find a reason to dance, and watch the sun rise every chance he gets."

One of the most remarkable things about Julian – and about the Brennan family – is how they combine the deepest ideals of service from both older and newer parts of our neighborhood.  Julian followed his Irish Catholic grandfather James into the Marines, feeling that after September 11th he had a duty to fight for the ideals and the security of our country.  And he also followed his father Bill Brennan, a musician and actor who performs kids music (he appears on one Park Slope Parents CD), and who played a song of forgiveness and healing at the memorial service.

Too often in our neighborhood, it seems as if these very different ideals might exist in neighboring houses on a block in the Slope or Windsor Terrace or Carroll Gardens, but that they are still two different cultures, sometimes even worlds apart.  Julian and his family's example reminds us that they can and should go together -- that they are merely different ways of serving something bigger than yourself.

In a remarkable act of compassion, his parents Bill and Thya Brennan are asking us to make contributions in Julian’s memory to the Central Asia Institute, at www.ikat.org.  CAI’s mission is to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in the remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Please consider a donation in Julian's memory to:

Central Asia Institute
P.O. Box 7209
Bozeman, MT 59771  
In memo line, please write: Julian Brennan

Please help the Brennans to make a deep and abiding blessing of Julian’s life and memory.