Brothers Forever

Brothers Forever is the story of 1Lt Travis Manion, USMC, and his best friend, LT Brendan Looney, USN (SEAL). Written by Tom Sileo, syndicated columnist and author of The Unknown Soldiers blog, and Travis’s father, Tom Manion, a retired Marine Corps Colonel, Brothers Forever is a story that is at once unique and simultaneously emblematic of this nation’s most recent generation of heroes.

I first heard about Travis Manion in another book, former Navy SEAL and The Mission Continues founder Eric Greiten’s The Heart and The Fist. It was clear from the way Greitens talked about Travis that he held him in high esteem. While Greitens talked a little about Travis’s service in Iraq and, ultimately, his death, it wasn’t until Brothers Forever that I got a fuller picture of who he really was. Now, in addition to warrior and selfless leader, I can add that he was funny and thoughtful, caring and vibrant.

The same things can be said about his best friend, his “brother,” Brendan Looney. Time and again Brendan’s character is demonstrated in this book. What strikes me most is his humility. He was extraordinarily gifted and yet he never bragged, more often than not even underplaying his achievements. He let his actions, which were always consciously executed, speak for him.

As both Travis and Brendan were killed in combat zones, there are, as expected, tragic moments in the book. Ones, as a reader who did not know Travis or Brendan, I found difficult to read. I cannot imagine how difficult they were for Tom Manion to write. They were, however, handled well. While the author’s patriotism and belief that both Travis and Brendan died under the most honorable circumstances are evident, there is no attempt to sugarcoat the grief both families felt at the loss of their beloved sons/brothers/husband. It is, instead, on the pages in its rawest and most honest form, driving home the true cost of the sacrifices made by Travis, Brendan, and the thousands of others who gave all.

For me, some of the most impactful moments of the book were the small ones. A laugh-out-loud anecdote that shows Travis’s humor during training. The moment he asks to hold his niece. The way he offered to write a letter of recommendation for an interpreter…and kept his word. A phone conversation between Brendan and his wife when both have had a stressful day and the wonderfully generous thing he does for her when the conversation is over. The moment he demonstrates, in the middle of a firefight, that a simple action can define a leader better than any words can.

Brothers Forever is the story of two Naval Academy graduates and their friendship. However it is also about more than that. It is a reminder that fate is fickle, that we don’t know how many breaths we have between our first and our last. The best we can do is use each breath in a way we can be proud of, so that, when we go, those who remain are left with both cherished memories and inspiration to make the most of the breaths left to them. 1Lt Travis Manion and LT Brendan Looney did both of those things.

Their legacies live on in The Travis Manion Foundation and the Brendan Looney ’99 Memorial Scholarship and, of course, in the hearts of those who knew them and those who have been and will be inspired by their stories. If you haven’t yet read Brothers Forever, you can read an excerpt here.

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