Marine Lance Cpl. Julian T. Brennan

Died January 24, 2009 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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25, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; died Jan. 24 while supporting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan.

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Lejeune Marine dies in Afghanistan

Staff report

A North Carolina-based Marine died Saturday after a roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan’s Farah province, according to reports.

Lance Cpl. Julian T. Brennan, 25, was known as “Jules” to his family and friends, according to a report in the New York Daily News. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Brennan was a machine gunner assigned to Camp Lejeune’s 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, the Corps said in a news release.

He aspired to be in show business, the newspaper reported.

Brennan was a “real swell kid, a very good-looking boy who was the darling of the girls,” family friend Charles Marahan told the Daily News. “Jules was made for the stage and the movies. You either have it or you don’t, and he had it.”

Brennan earned an associate’s degree from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan and worked on the Martha Stewart show before joining the Corps, the newspaper reported. He was on his first deployment.

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Flags fly at half-staff as tribute

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — New York Gov. David Paterson has directed flags on all state office buildings be flown at half-staff Jan. 30 to honor a local Marine who was killed in Afghanistan.

Lance Cpl. Julian T. Brennan died Jan. 24 while fighting in the Farah province. The New York City resident was assigned to Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Paterson offered his condolences Jan. 28 to the 25-year-old Brooklyn resident’s family, friends and fellow Marines.

Brennan is the second Marine from New York City to be killed in Afghanistan this year.

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Was married before deploying to Afghanistan

The Associated Press

Julian T. Brennan and his father were playing dominoes and drinking beer a few years ago when the younger man said, “I have something to tell you.”

“And when a 23-year-old says that, it could be anything,” said Bill Brennan. “But we did not expect, ‘I joined the Marines.’ ”

Brennan, 25, of New York City, died Jan. 24 while supporting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Brennan graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan in 2006, got his Screen Actors Guild card and began lining up acting gigs while working as a carpenter on Martha Stewart’s show.

He had always been interested in the military. His grandfather earned the Navy Cross at Iwo Jima during World War II, and he nearly enlisted after Sept. 11, 2001.

Thya Merz, his mother, last spoke to him on Inauguration Day — he was a Barack Obama supporter — and he expressed a “deep empathy” for the Afghan people.

His father called him a “happy and ethical warrior.”

He also is survived by his wife, Bettina Beard, whom he secretly married before he shipped out to Afghanistan in November.