Combat Journalist Becomes Face of Veteran Trauma Nonprofit

At a Glance

• Mission To Live Foundation names Amy Forsythe, a retired Navy Reserve Public Affairs Officer, as its newest Ambassador

• Forsythe brings five combat deployments and three decades of military and media experience to the nonprofit's outreach efforts

• The San Diego-based foundation funds psychedelic healing retreats and advocates for legal access to psychedelic-assisted therapy for veterans

• Forsythe's own ibogaine treatment retreat in Mexico last November informed her decision to join the organization

Mission To Live Foundation, a San Diego nonprofit focused on trauma recovery among veterans and first responders, announced on July 20, 2026, that it has named Amy Forsythe as an official Ambassador. Forsythe is a retired U.S. Navy Reserve Public Affairs Officer, Marine Corps veteran and five-time combat deployment veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. She will take on media engagement, public speaking and community outreach duties for the organization as it works to expand its reach nationally.

A Communicator With Combat Credentials

Forsythe's résumé spans more than 30 years across military service and journalism. She served as a combat correspondent and television journalist before retiring from the Navy Reserve, and she is the author of "Heroes Live Here: A Tribute to Camp Pendleton Marines." That combination of firsthand military experience and professional storytelling is central to the role she will play at the foundation.

She also founded Two Palms Media Group and MediaBridge.io, a platform built to connect subject-matter experts with journalists and event organizers. Those ventures give her existing infrastructure for the kind of media placement and outreach that Mission To Live Foundation is counting on to raise its visibility among veteran, healthcare and corporate audiences.

"Mission To Live Foundation represents a pathway for people who have spent years carrying invisible wounds. I've witnessed firsthand the devastating impact that trauma, PTSD and moral injury can have on service members, veterans, first responders and their families. It is an honor to serve as an ambassador and help share the stories that inspire others to believe recovery is possible."

— Amy Forsythe, Ambassador, Mission To Live Foundation

Combat Journalist Becomes Face of Veteran Trauma Nonprofit

Three Pillars Behind the Foundation's Mission

Mission To Live Foundation organizes its work around three areas: funding psychedelic healing retreats, advancing research into psychedelic-assisted treatment, and advocating for legal, safe access to psychedelic care. The organization operates as an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3), positioning itself within a still-emerging category of nonprofits pursuing trauma treatment outside conventional clinical settings.

As an Ambassador, Forsythe is tasked specifically with increasing public awareness of that mission, sharing recovery stories across media and digital platforms, supporting fundraising, representing the organization at conferences and speaking engagements, and helping build partnerships across veteran, nonprofit, healthcare and corporate sectors. Those five responsibilities, as outlined by the foundation, cover both the public-facing and relationship-building sides of the role.

CEO Jay Kopelman, a retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, framed the appointment as a matter of both credibility and lived understanding of the veteran community's needs.

"Amy's extraordinary background in journalism, military service and strategic communications makes her an exceptional addition to not only our Ambassador team, but to the Mission to Live Foundation team," Kopelman said. "She understands both the challenges our veteran community faces and the importance of authentic storytelling in changing lives."

A Personal Retreat That Shaped the Decision

Forsythe's connection to the foundation's work is not purely professional. In November 2025, she traveled to Beond Treatment Center in Cancun, for a weeklong ibogaine treatment and wellness retreat. The foundation describes that experience as the starting point of her own healing process and the catalyst for her renewed focus on veteran mental health advocacy.

That personal history distinguishes her appointment from a typical spokesperson arrangement. Rather than approaching the subject purely as a journalist covering trauma recovery from the outside, Forsythe now brings direct experience with the type of treatment Mission To Live Foundation funds for the veterans and first responders it serves.

Psychedelic-Assisted Care's Uneven Path Into Veteran Health

Forsythe's appointment lands amid ongoing debate over the role of psychedelic compounds such as ibogaine in treating post-traumatic stress and moral injury. Advocacy groups and some veterans have pushed for wider legal access to these treatments, arguing that conventional approaches have not met the scale of need among service members returning from combat. Regulatory frameworks for psychedelic-assisted therapy remain inconsistent across jurisdictions, which is precisely the terrain the foundation's advocacy pillar is designed to address.

Nonprofits pairing treatment funding with public advocacy occupy a distinct niche in this space: they are neither pure research institutions nor conventional charities, but organizations trying to influence policy while directly supporting individuals seeking care. Recruiting a communicator with Forsythe's military credibility and national media relationships is a recognizable strategy for organizations attempting to shift public and legislative opinion on a still-contested treatment category. Her role, in that sense, extends beyond storytelling into the harder work of building legitimacy for an approach that remains outside mainstream veteran healthcare.

Forsythe's appointment gives Mission To Live Foundation a spokesperson with direct combat experience, an established media network and a personal stake in the treatment model it promotes. Whether that translates into expanded funding, new partnerships or shifts in policy toward psychedelic-assisted care remains to be seen. The foundation's next test will be converting visibility into measurable outcomes for the veterans and first responders it says it exists to serve.