“Brothers Forever” – An interview with Amy Looney

0:00 hi my name is Amy Looney and I’m the director for our survivor services at the travis manion foundation thank you today for meeting with us for the 2016 constitutional Academy we’re here to hear your story about your husband and about this story of brothers forever and

0:21 so if you’d like to begin just kind of give us a rundown in a synopsis of your your vision of the story brothers forever it was a book that was written in part by Colonel Tom Mannion and by Tom salio and the story is really you know it’s a real-life story for me it’s about my husband Brendan Looney and his

0:42 stable Naval Academy roommate Travis Manion and you know I actually met Brendan back in 2003 when we started dating and Travis and Brendan were just in their junior year at the at the academy at that time and i got to know travis very well just from dating brendan and we all became very close Brendan and Travis were great friends

1:03 you know Travis wrestled and Brendan played lacrosse so very much sports was a big part of their life and and who they were and you know the story is really about you know it’s really their story but it’s all about how do we translate that and kind of use that as motivation to keep moving forward after

1:24 such significant losses you know Travis was killed by him he was a Marine who was killed by a sniper in April of 2007 and about three and a half years later you know I lost Brendan in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in September of 2010 so the story really talks about their friendship what Brotherhood and

1:45 what friendship and what these relationships really mean and how the families have really come together to take their legacies and carry that forward so it can inspire what our next generation you know can look at as potential role models and embrace some of these qualities their character their leadership the way that they live their lives as they move forward and generations that will never know them

2:06 will have the opportunity to hear that story with our constitutional Academy really focusing on citizenship in today’s day and age how does military service relate to citizenship being a US citizen is a privilege you know I I believe we live in the greatest nation and I don’t think that you know it the military service is not necessarily for

2:28 everyone you know we have a volunteer corps where if you decide you want to be a part and serve and do something that’s really bigger than yourself you have that freedom to be able to sign up or to not choose to sign up to participate in that you know I’m very privileged to be a part of the military community having a husband that served and and most of my

2:49 friends just from traveling and moving around are all part of that military community but i think that the military community really embodies that service and sacrifice and being selfless and putting putting some of your family needs and things that you’re going through aside for the betterment of our nation and i think that that’s really truly a privilege and i think that even

3:11 if you choose not to wear a uniform and you choose not to serve what’s really important to me and about the work that i do at the travis manion foundation is that you can serve without wearing a uniform you can be you know whatever age whatever you know it is that you want to do you can figure out a way to be a civic asset within your own community and giving back to others can be your

3:33 form of service and being a good citizen in the great nation well thank you for all of your service and what the travis manion foundation does and we appreciate you taking the time out of your data to speak with us absolutely thank you