Your Name Stays Yours

Handles only — never your real name

You join Foxhole Forum with a handle you choose. We do not ask for your legal name, unit, service number, rank, or address. Branch and era are optional, self-reported, and used only for badges. Your email is for sign-in and account recovery only — it is never shown publicly. There is no feature anywhere on this site that collects your real name.

Veteran interviews

When you fill out the interview questionnaire, your answers are saved to your account while you work on them. Only you and the moderation team can see the draft. If you choose to submit it, a moderator reviews the answers before anything is published.

Published interviews appear on the interviews page and show only the first name, branch, years of service, and the answers you agreed to publish. We do not display your user ID, email, or handle on a published interview. Once published, an interview can be shared publicly, so only include details you are comfortable having visible to anyone who visits the site.

Crisis alerts and watchstander escalation

If a forum post contains language that suggests someone may be in immediate danger, our system flags the post for review and creates a crisis alert. The alert includes the room, the time, and a severity level. It does not include the full post text in the notification emails sent to watchstanders, captains, or community leaders.

The escalation ladder is automated: a watchstander is notified first, then a watch captain, then additional community leaders if the alert remains unacknowledged. The goal is to get eyes on a concerning post quickly, not to share the post verbatim outside the protected moderation queue. Moderators and admins can review the full context inside the forum moderation tools.

Community leaders also receive an email whenever a new post or a member report is created. That email contains the room, whether it was a thread, a reply, or a report, and a link back into the forum. It never contains the post text, your handle, or the name of the person who filed a report. To protect the forum and the people watching it, posting and reporting are rate limited.

Avatars

By default your profile uses a branch-themed portrait. You can also upload your own photo. Custom avatar uploads are stored in a private bucket under a path tied to your account. We save the storage path in your profile, not a long-lived public link, so the image cannot be reshared from a URL that outlasts your account.

When your avatar is displayed, the app creates a short-lived signed URL that expires quickly. Other signed-in members can see your avatar in the forum, rooms, and member lists; guests and search engines cannot. If you replace or remove your custom avatar, the old file is deleted from storage.

We do not sell your data

Full stop. We never sell, rent, or trade your information to anyone. We do not share it with data brokers, advertisers, or the VA. The only data we hold is what you need to use the forum, and we keep it to the minimum.

No ads, no trackers

Foxhole Forum carries no third-party advertising and no advertising trackers inside the community. We are not in the business of monetizing your attention or your pain. This place is free because it is run by veterans, for veterans.

Not affiliated with the VA

Foxhole Forum is an independent, peer-led community. We are not part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs or any government agency. Nothing you share here is reported to the VA, and nothing here affects your benefits or your record.

Deleting your data

You can ask us to delete your account and your data at any time, for any reason, no questions asked. Email contact@foxholewatch.com from the address on your account and we will wipe it. Posts you made may be removed or anonymized so the conversations others relied on do not collapse.

You must be 18 or older

Foxhole Forum is for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or post. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.