We believe that one of the best therapies for Marines who are struggling with either transitioning to civilian life or the stress of repeated combat tours overseas is to spend time with people within their support structure, whether that be fellow Marines, family members, or close friends.

The bonds we have built over our lifetimes are what hold us together and keep us moving forward. The No Better Friend Fund seeks to provide emergency and planned financial assistance to Marines and their families that are struggling to maintain those bonds. Whether it means helping to complete a planned vacation, ensuring a Marine can make it to a unit gathering, or sending a fellow Marine to spend time with someone who is struggling, NBFF will help provide the safety net to allow Marines to be there for each other.

While we begin to provide support, our distributions will be limited to members of 2/8 who served between the years of 2006-2011 and deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan. We will also consider recommendations from former 2/8 Marines to support Marines from other units. We hope to expand our scope of support in time to all combat veterans, but to ensure the Fund’s viability we must keep it limited in the beginning.

We are a collection of combat veterans from 2d Battalion, 8th Marines and friends who understand that our mission to each other did not end when we returned home or left Active Duty.  The No Better Friend Fund was started in 2015 by two former Marine Officers who felt they needed to make a more significant contribution to the men they fought alongside in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The idea was sparked by the continued loss of our fellow Marines to suicide and substance abuse, a growing epidemic that is unacceptable and will be stopped.

For those of us who have chosen to serve our nation during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are considerable resources at our disposal to help us through the rest of our lives and careers. Unfortunately those resources, organizations, and systems are not having the desired outcomes as the rate of veteran suicide and substance abuse is well above acceptable limits. We believe that facilitating the bonds of brotherhood created through combat can be the deciding factor between life and death, success and failure, just as it was when facing the trials of counterinsurgency warfare. Simply because we are no longer facing enemy bullets, bombs, and rockets does not mean we should not be supporting each other anymore. We are Marines for life. We will support each other to the end.