Marine Veteran Starts "The War Horse" News Site

Veteran Launches 'The War Horse' to Tell Stories of Iraq, Afghanistan
Military.com
by Hope Hodge Seck
Jan 03, 2016

"I think the one common thread that I bring to the table is I know the fear that exists [among troops] when it comes to approaching journalists. Having people who are personally involved in these different worlds is going to open up the possibilities."

Thomas Brennan, a Marine veteran-turned-journalist, is preparing for the launch of

The War Horse, an independent journalism site dedicated to chronicling the effects

of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy Cindy Schepers)

One Marine veteran is on a mission to make sure the war stories of his generation are told -- and told right.

Thomas Brennan, a medically retired staff sergeant-turned-journalist, is preparing for the launch of The War Horse, an independent journalism site dedicated to chronicling the effects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The website brands itself "the authority on the post-9/11 conflict and the ONLY digital magazine profiling all men, women, interpreters, and dogs killed since 9/11."The idea for the site came to Brennan while he was working as a staff writer for The Daily News out of Jacksonville, North Carolina, a town adjacent to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

"It all started with me getting aggravated that stories weren't being gathered about World War II vets and World War I vets and we've waited so long to tell the stories of years prior," Brennan, 30, told Military.com. "War has been a constant in human existence since the very beginning, and I just think it's about time that we really report on it and understand and conceptualize everything that war is."

Brennan is in a unique position to tell those stories, as someone who has experienced the realities of war as a Marine and who has reported on the military as a civilian. Brennan served nearly nine years in the Marine Corps as an infantry assaultman before retiring in 2012.

On Nov. 1, 2010, Brennan was wounded on a deployment to Afghanistan when a rocket-propelled grenade detonated next to him. He was diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury, and has since also documented his struggles with post-traumatic stress.
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