A Story of Service, A Strategy for Truth
On Veterans Day, I’m thinking about a Marine I met, and the newsroom he built from his own backstory.
Today is Veterans Day—a day for reflecting on service and sacrifice.
This year, I find myself reflecting on one story in particular. It’s a story about what service looks like long after the uniform comes off. It’s a story about how one person’s most personal backstory can become another’s most effective public strategy.
A few weeks ago, I found myself at a summit for American Press Institute fellows in D.C. One of the sessions I attended was with a journalist named Thomas Brennan.
Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’ll admit I knew nothing about Thomas Brennan or his work before that session. I didn’t even know his organization, The War Horse, existed. But then I listened to him. I heard him tell his story. I sat through him explaining what his little nonprofit newsroom has been able to achieve.
I was just blown away.
To me, it was the perfect example of this whole idea of “Backstory & Strategy.”
Here’s the deal with Thomas Brennan. He’s not your average journalist. This is a guy who medically retired as a Sergeant from the Marine Corps. And not just any Marine Corps. Thomas Brennan saw deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He was wounded in combat, suffering a traumatic brain injury and PTSD from his time overseas.
It was during his long recovery that he turned to writing. It was a way for him to work through the experience. For him, it became a kind of therapy. A way of unpacking what he calls his “invisible injuries.”
But as he did, he realized that he wasn’t just writing for himself. In doing so, he was uncovering a massive hole in journalism. The press was good at covering the politics of war. They were good at covering the “bang-bang” of combat operations. But what they were missing was the aftermath. What about the long, complicated, human cost of it all?
He found story after story being left untold. The stories of moral injury. Stories of the never-ending VA struggles. Or the toxic burn pit exposures.
This was his own personal backstory. It was a lived experience shared by thousands. But in his view, it was almost completely absent from the national conversation.
For him, it wasn’t just a pitch he could take to some other outlet. He felt like it was a mission. He realized that if he was going to tell these stories with the persistence and authenticity they required, he couldn’t just be another reporter.
He needed to build the whole damn vehicle himself.
So that’s exactly what he did. He went to Columbia Journalism School. In 2016, he founded The War Horse.
Now, let me tell you, his strategy here is just brilliant. The War Horse is a nonprofit, which I love. It means that the organization is freed from the bottom line. They’re insulated from the marketplace. That means they can focus purely on impact, not clicks.
The organization is built on a single mission. To be the most trusted source on the human impact of military service.
But it’s not just a storytelling organization. It’s a real accountability engine. The War Horse is going after the Department of Defense. It’s holding the VA accountable. And in so much of their work, it’s really trying to close this vast chasm in understanding that exists between the 1% of our country that serve and the 99% that don’t.
And the impact this small team has had is just staggering. The War Horse is a Pulitzer-finalist. Their reporting is changing federal law. It’s even changing military policy.
On Veterans Day, we’re right to thank our veterans for their service. We absolutely should.
But I think Thomas Brennan’s story helps us think about service in another way as well. It’s a powerful reminder that our most personal “backstories” can be forged into our most effective “strategies.”
Thomas Brennan didn’t just find a new career. He built a new model for journalism. One built on service, truth, and a deep-seated mission to care for those who have served.
It’s a powerful reminder that for many, service never really ends.
If this story resonated with you, I hope you’ll consider joining me in supporting the work Thomas Brennan and his team are doing.
This is what vital, nonprofit accountability journalism looks like, and it depends on readers to keep it going.
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