voir le site du DoD
Afghanistan bomb blast kills Brooklyn Marine.
BY KERRY BURKE and LEO STANDORA DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Tuesday, January 27th 2009, 4:00 AM
Just about everyone who knew aspiring actor Julian (Jules) Brennan thought he'd be a star someday.
The handsome 25-year-old Brooklyn man with a killer smile could sing, dance, crack you up with a joke or just endear himself to you with his sometimes goofy personality, say friends.
He wanted a career on the stage or in movies, but not before he followed a family tradition of serving his country, so he joined the Marines.
A roadside bomb blast killed Lance Cpl. Brennan Saturday during a combat mission in Afghanistan 's Farah Province, a growing hotbed of Taliban activity, officials said.
He became the second New Yorker to fall in Afghanistan this year while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Marine Lance Cpl. Alberto Francesconi, 21, lost his life to a land mine in Afghanistan on New Year's Day.
Brennan's brother, James, and father, Billy, a singer who tours the nation entertaining kids with environment-themed tunes, were too distraught to talk.
But family friend Charles Marahan, 75, described Julian as a "real swell kid, a very good-looking boy who was the darling of the girls. Jules was made for the stage and the movies. You either have it or you don't, and he had it."
Brennan graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan in 2005 with an associate's degree in drama, then took a job as a carpenter with the Martha Stewart show.
"He was in a couple of Off-Broadway shows and it looked like that was what he was going to do," said Marahan, "but then he got the bug to join the Marines."
"His grandfather fought in the Pacific theater in WWII, and Jules wanted to emulate him," he explained. "The family had a military tradition, and he wanted to live up to it.
"We're all shook up about this because we expected to see him come back," Marahan said dolefully. "The Marines, they offered him a commission because he was a college graduate, but he turned it down. All he wanted to do was one tour then return to acting."
Brennan also was a pretty fair athlete who finished the 2007 New York City Triathlon in 2:44:21.
On his MySpace page, he described himself "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."
kburke@nydailynews.com
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L'ANSSO, assure l'ensemble du contingent américain en Afghanistan de son entière sympathie, s'associe à la douleur des familles et leur présente ses plus sincères condoléances.