As the need increases for mission training centers to support large-scale distributed, joint and coalition training exercises in addition to their traditional individual, team, and sometimes collective focus, a corresponding increase in system capability is needed. While current debriefing capabilities may support the traditional training center mission well; these systems often do not effectively support distributed joint and international participation. This paper will discuss the challenges of large-scale distributed debrief focusing on the problem of distributed record and playback. An approach is described that is capable of automatically keeping locally recorded data, time synchronized across a wide-area network. This approach provides distributed synchronization without the requirement to replay data across the distributed network, or through use of common tools. Such capability enables warfighters to use the same tools with which they are already familiar. Details are discussed, including how it achieves synchronization, extension possibilities, security considerations, and analysis of implementation options. Relevant research and experiences with distributed debrief will be discussed including some innovative ideas for advancing debrief state-of-the-art as follows. Highly accurate and automated synchronization, distributed network bandwidth reduction, multi-level security support, and easy legacy system integration to name a few. Recent experiences from the U.K. Mission Training through Distributed Simulation (MTDS) will be included to describe these benefits. The implications of this work point to the need for standards development for distributed debrief. Standardization will lead to improved interoperability for large-scale distributed debrief.