01/21/2026
2026 Sustainment Campaign — The Debrief Project
History. Healing. Connection. Legacy.
In 2025, The Debrief Project took a major step forward in our mission to help veterans, active-duty service members, and their families share their history and heal in the process. Over the past year, we recorded more than 40 debriefs, totaling hundreds of hours of oral history, storytelling, and meaningful human connection.
The results were unambiguous:
• 100% positive feedback from veterans who completed a debrief
• Significant reduction in reported feelings of isolation and “my story doesn’t matter”
• Powerful increases in reported feelings of gratitude, validation, and connection
• A growing community of veterans who are reconnecting with one another after decades
2026 is the year we build on that foundation.
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What the 2026 Sustainment Campaign Supports
Our focus this year is simple and mission-driven:
1. More Debriefs
Expanding our ability to give veterans and service members the opportunity to tell their story — accurately, fully, and with dignity.
2. Veteran Support Groups
Launching facilitated peer spaces where veterans can reconnect, decompress, and build community rooted in shared experience.
3. Quality & Access
Improving production, editing, publishing, and archiving of debriefs so that they are preserved as both historical primary sources and mental health interventions.
4. Operation Promise Keeper
Our largest history project to date: a multi-part docuseries telling the story of the Battle for Baqubah from those who lived it.
These initiatives are not separate. They reinforce one another. Every debrief expands the historical record. Every support group strengthens connection. Operation
Promise Keeper gives the public context to understand it all.
This is what sustainment looks like: mission continuity, not one-off projects.
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Operation Promise Keeper — Where History Meets Healing
For nearly 10 plus years, there were rumors about a Battle for Baqubah documentary. In 2025, The Debrief Project finally moved from talk to action. We released our first trailer and formally announced that Operation Promise Keeper is happening.
We are proud to report:
• The docuseries is in active development
• Filming continues through mid-2026
• Target release: late-2026 to mid-2027
• Public release will be free on YouTube, accessible to everyone — no paywalls, no ticketing, no studio gatekeeping
And to clear the air:
• No studio deal
• No network contract
• No rights sold
• No outside financier
Operation Promise Keeper exists for one reason:
Veterans and those who support them want this history told — correctly, honestly, and while the men who lived it are still here to speak.
Funding now runs through the 2026 Sustainment Campaign, ensuring the docuseries is produced as part of the larger mission of history + healing, not as a isolated one-off.
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Where Debriefs Fit In
Debriefs are the connective tissue between the individual veteran and the history books.
Traditional documentaries provide the narrative arc.
Debriefs provide the lived experience and nuance.
Some debrief content will inform the docuseries.
All debriefs will be published publicly — serving future:
• historians
• families
• researchers
• military leaders
• future generations
• and the veteran community itself
We believe families deserve to understand what happened, units deserve their history preserved, and veterans deserve to heal through sharing it.
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How You Can Help Sustain The Debrief Project & Operation Promise Keeper
We need four things — and we need them now:
📸 Photos
📹 Videos
🎙️ Debriefs
💵 Donations
If you served in Baqubah, this is your window.
If you didn’t, but you care about preserving history and supporting veterans, this is your impact point.
Operation Promise Keeper — and the broader Sustainment Campaign — only succeeds through grassroots support: veterans, families, donors, businesses, and citizens who believe that history and healing both matter.
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The Call to Action
If you want this story told — and told accurately, from the people who were actually there — then we invite you to take part.
📨 Submit Photos/Videos or Sign Up for a Debrief:
debriefs@debriefproject.org
💰 Donate to Sustain Our Work:
https://debriefproject.org/donate/
🤝 Pledge, Sponsor, or Fundraise:
mike.martin@debriefproject.org
2025 proved the model works.
2026 is about scaling it.
The only remaining question is:
Who will help support History & Healing
