Marine Corps Combat Veteran · Founder · Speaker · Author · Photographer
The pain happened.
What it becomes is still up to you.
Kenny Bass is a Marine Corps combat veteran, co-founder of The Battle Buddy Foundation, speaker, author, and photographer whose work explores what trauma takes, what service restores, and what people can choose to build from experiences they never would have chosen.
The work continues in different forms. Start with the part that brought you here.
Books and projects
Follow the development of If Not for the Blast and Atlas & Friends, see what remains to be completed, and support the project that matters most to you.
Photography
View photographs made during the 2003 Iraq War and reconsidered more than two decades later as memory, evidence, and art. Purchase approved limited-edition works when they become available.
Speaking
Explore keynotes and conversations about service, leadership, invisible disability, purpose, and what people can choose to build after life changes.
Media and professional contact
View selected media and documentary work or reach Kenny about interviews, publishing, education, exhibitions, film, partnerships, and other appropriate opportunities.
In 2003, Kenny served with Marine infantry during the Iraq War. During a counter-ambush patrol, his Humvee was struck by an IED. He returned home carrying physical and invisible wounds he did not yet understand.
Years later, Atlas—a German Shepherd service dog—helped Kenny reenter public life. That partnership led Kenny and fellow Marine veteran Joshua Rivers to co-found The Battle Buddy Foundation in 2013.
Atlas was later named the 2017 American Humane Service Dog of the Year. The mission grew outward, and so did the story—into If Not for the Blast, Atlas & Friends, and A Marine’s Disposable War, a growing body of work exploring war, memory, purpose, and what survives afterward.
Featured through TODAY, Fox & Friends, The T.D. Jakes Show, PBS, CBS Los Angeles/KCAL9, Hallmark, HISTORY and Variety, and the documentaries Searching for Home: Coming Back From War and From War to Wisdom.
Both books are in development. Public interest, project support, and the practical resources available to finish them will help shape which work can move forward fastest.
The mercifully short memoir
In development
A pocket-sized literary memoir about poverty, war, traumatic brain injury, service dogs, fatherhood, failure, and the difficult practice of making something useful from pain.
Explore and Support the Memoir
Children’s book project
In development
A warm, educational story introducing children to service dogs, guide dogs, therapy dogs, working K-9s, emotional-support animals, and pets through empathy, respect, and clear distinctions.
Explore and Support Atlas & Friends
Photography
Disposable-camera photographs made during the 2003 Iraq War, rediscovered more than two decades later and reconsidered as memory, evidence, and art.
Speaking
Kenny speaks about combat, trauma, service, leadership, invisible disability, purpose, and the decision to build something from experiences no one would choose.
His talks are grounded in lived experience rather than easy answers. They can be adapted for corporate teams, associations, veteran and military audiences, schools, universities, public-safety professionals, nonprofits, and community events.
Featured talk
A candid, self-aware account of war, the long return home, Atlas, the founding of a mission, and the unfinished work of deciding what pain will become.
Support a project still being built, view the photography, explore speaking, or use the professional contact path that best matches your request.