Donnie Edwards Best Defense Foundation

We are a San Diego-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to honoring the service and sacrifice of America's veterans by returning them to the battlefields where they fought. Through immersive, carefully curated travel programs, we bring veterans back to the places that shaped them and in doing so, we help them reclaim something that combat often takes away: perspective, peace, and pride in what they gave.

Who We Are

The Best Defense Foundation was founded by Donnie Edwards, a former NFL player who understood early that honoring veterans meant doing more than saying thank you. It meant making the kind of investment in a veteran's story that reflects the magnitude of what they sacrificed. Since our founding, BDF has grown into a nationally recognized organization with programs that span continents and generations, bringing together veterans, families, historians, and the next generation of Americans who want to understand what freedom truly costs.

Our programs operate across some of the most significant battlefields in modern history — Normandy and the beaches of D-Day, the fields of Holland and Belgium where Market Garden unfolded, the Pacific theater where the island-hopping campaign defined a generation, and most recently, the jungles and cities of Vietnam, where American veterans are returning for the first time in decades to confront, process, and ultimately reconcile the most complicated chapter in American military history.

What We Do

BDF's flagship program, Battlefield Returns, is at the heart of everything we do. We select veterans who served in specific theaters of war and bring them back physically, emotionally, and historically to the places where they served. These journeys are transformative experiences designed in partnership with sponsors, local guides, government partners, and allied nations who share our commitment to honoring those who fought.

On the ground, veterans walk the terrain they once crossed under fire. They stand in the cemeteries where their brothers and sisters are buried. They meet the descendants of the people they helped liberate. They tell their stories to audiences who are ready to receive them. What happens in those moments is difficult to put into words, but the veterans who have traveled with us will tell you: something shifts. Something heals.

Our NextGen program extends the mission beyond the veteran community by embedding young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 alongside veterans on these battlefield journeys. The pairing is intentional and powerful. NextGen participants become witnesses, advocates, and storytellers. They return home changed, carrying forward the firsthand accounts of men and women whose experiences might otherwise be lost to history. NextGen is how we ensure that the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation, and every generation that followed, are never forgotten.

Our Stronghold Program addresses the critical transition period that many veterans face when returning to civilian life. Military service provides structure, purpose, and community and leaving it can be profoundly disorienting. Stronghold connects our special forces veterans with the resources, relationships, and support systems they need to build a meaningful life after service. Because honoring veterans doesn't stop at the battlefield. It continues in the communities where they come home.

Why It Matters

The veterans we serve are aging. The World War II veterans who stormed Normandy and raised flags on Pacific islands are in their late nineties and beyond. Every year, more of their voices go silent. Every year, the window for these journeys grows smaller. The urgency of this work is real, and we feel it every time we stand on a beach in France with a man who crossed it under fire eighty years ago and watch him finally make peace with what he survived.

But this work is not only for the oldest generation. Vietnam veterans who returned home to a country that was not ready to receive them with the honor they deserved are now finding, through BDF, a path back to something they were denied: recognition, closure, and the knowledge that their service mattered. The need does not diminish with time. If anything, it grows.

The Impact of Your Support

Every dollar donated to the Best Defense Foundation goes directly toward making these journeys possible. Our programs are provided at no cost to participating veterans, because we believe that a veteran who gave everything should never have to pay to be honored.

Your support funds airfare and accommodations for veterans who could not otherwise afford to make the journey. It funds the medical team who provides safety and care to every veteran on program. It funds the coordination with allied governments, military archives, and diplomatic partners who make access possible. It funds the NextGen participants who carry these stories forward. And it funds the relationships with donors, sponsors, community partners, and veteran service organizationsthat make BDF not just a program, but a movement.

When you give to BDF, you are not writing a check to an organization. You are pouring into a 98-year-old man who never thought he would see Omaha Beach again. You are funding the moment a Vietnam veteran walks through a village he last saw through the scope of a rifle and is greeted with a handshake. You are investing in a 22-year-old who will spend the rest of her life telling the story of what she witnessed and making sure the rest of us never forget.

Join Us

The Best Defense Foundation is built on the belief that the most powerful thing we can do for a veteran is bear witness to their service not in the abstract, but in the specific, sacred places where history was made. We invite you to be part of that mission.

Whether you give $25 or $25,000, your contribution sends a veteran home. And home, for so many of the men and women we serve, is the place where they can finally lay down what they have been carrying for decades.

Taking Care of the Ones Who Took Care of Us.