Marine Corps Combat Veteran · Founder · Speaker · Author · Photographer
A life changed by war—and rebuilt through service.
Kenny Bass is a Marine Corps combat veteran, nonprofit founder, speaker, author, and photographer whose work asks a difficult question: what can we choose to build from experiences we never would have chosen?
The story connects an IED blast in Iraq, the long return home, Atlas, The Battle Buddy Foundation, two books in development, and a disposable-camera archive reconsidered more than twenty years later.
Service
The road that came before the mission.
Kenny served with Marine infantry in 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, during the 2003 Iraq War. On July 20, 2003, while participating in a counter-ambush patrol, the Humvee he was riding in was struck by an improvised explosive device.
He finished his Marine Corps service and returned home carrying traumatic brain injury, PTSD, hearing loss, physical pain, memory difficulties, and a version of himself he did not yet understand.
The years that followed were not a clean story of recovery. They involved treatment, isolation, family strain, and the difficult work of learning how war continued to shape ordinary civilian life.
Atlas
One leash became a lifeline.
The lifeline became a mission.
In 2012, Kenny was paired with Atlas, a German Shepherd service dog trained to mitigate the effects of his disabilities. Atlas helped Kenny navigate public spaces, interrupt escalating distress, wake from nightmares, and reconnect with life beyond isolation.
That relationship changed more than Kenny’s daily life. It revealed how difficult and expensive it could be for a disabled veteran to obtain a properly trained service dog—and gave Kenny a new responsibility.
Atlas was later named the 2017 American Humane Service Dog of the Year.
Visit the Atlas the Wonder Dog legacy page on Facebook (opens in a new tab)
Founding work
A personal barrier became a public mission.
Kenny and fellow Marine combat veteran Joshua Rivers co-founded The Battle Buddy Foundation in 2013 after Kenny’s experience obtaining Atlas revealed the barriers other veterans faced in accessing trained service dogs.
The Battle Buddy Foundation is a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by combat veterans. Kenny continues to serve as its executive director.
This website supports Kenny’s independent speaking, writing, photography, publishing, and professional work. Service-dog applications, charitable donations, nonprofit partnerships, and official organizational inquiries belong with TBBF.
Visit The Battle Buddy Foundation (opens in a new tab)Professional Contact Options
The story moved beyond one person.
Kenny and Atlas were featured in Searching for Home: Coming Back From War, a documentary about the lasting effects of war and the search for healing after combat. Kenny also appeared in From War to Wisdom, a documentary following Marines seeking purpose after war.
Kenny has spoken to corporate, civic, veteran, military, educational, professional-association, service-dog, and community audiences. His talks do not present pain as automatically meaningful or tragedy as a blessing. They focus on the repeated decision to keep participating in life and to determine what suffering will be allowed to become.
Creative work
Built one mark at a time.
Kenny created this digital portrait of Atlas using pencil-and-eraser tools—another project begun before certainty, built one mark at a time.
The current work takes three different forms.
The projects are connected by memory, service, and the recurring decision to begin before certainty.
If Not for the Blast
A miniature 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.
Atlas & Friends
A children’s book in development
A warm, educational picture-book project introducing children to service dogs, guide dogs, therapy dogs, working K-9s, emotional-support animals, and pets through empathy, respect, and clear distinctions.
A Marine’s Disposable War
A photographic body of work
Disposable-camera photographs Kenny made in Iraq in 2003, preserved for more than twenty years and reconsidered as memory, evidence, and art.
Today
A new chapter, still being written.
Kenny now shares parts of the current journey with Arlo, a young German Shepherd growing up in public view—training, learning, and steadily becoming more capable than he was the month before.
Arlo is not a service dog. What he becomes is still ahead of him, and much of that work has not been done yet.
Much of Kenny’s current work still begins the same way the foundation, the books, the drawing of Atlas, and the photography did: before he knows exactly what he is doing, but with enough reason to begin.
About This Website
The website also contains an accessible arcade, because apparently the project required another category.
Website created and designed by Kenny Bass.
The pain happened. What it becomes is still up to you.
Kenny’s work does not ask people to call tragedy a gift. It asks what responsibility, connection, service, and creative work can still be built after life changes.
Explore Current ProjectsView the PhotographyBook Kenny to Speak