Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 15, 2016
CBS did an interview with the Chairman of the Wounded Warrior Project board, Anthony Odierno.
"Odierno defended the spending, saying, 'Raising awareness is a very important part of our mission and it's always been an important part of our our mission and I think that's what connects the American people with our service men and women who are coming back.'"
Raising awareness is something that gets talked about a lot however, there isn't much conversation about what the hell that is supposed to mean. Seriously, what does it mean?
It has become the catch to almost everything these days tied to a lot of folks making a lot of money for doing a lot of talking and hardly no explaining.
"Odierno, a retired U.S. Army captain himself, received help from the Wounded Warriors Project when he was injured in 2004."
First, he was not just a Captain, he was and is the son of General Ray Odierno, which makes it really hard to think he'd need a backpack from Wounded Warrior Project. After all, that is all they were doing back in 2004.
John and Jim Melia created the charity back in 2003. Its mission was to provide comfort items to injured vets. But according to Jim Melia, who lives here in Richmond, the charity has lost its way.But why ask questions? Why actually know that Wounded Warrior Project also has donated millions to colleges with funds that folks donated to them? Why ask for the term "raising awareness" to be explained at all or even the simple fact that they need to explain why they need or deserve hundreds of millions of dollars to do it?
There is a hell of a lot of that going on and the worst one is on the "22 a day" nauseating quoted by people who didn't even bother to read the report from the VA.
You've all read it since it has been posted too many times in the last 4 years. They got away with it the same way that mega charity did. Reporters didn't care enough to do basic research on the subject before they interviewed anyone and then after all was said and done, hardly nothing new was learned.
Ok, on the "22 a day" they should be researching basic questions, like "where did the number come from" and then actually know what the real report is. How about a simple question like "How can you say you are raising awareness if you don't even know the basic facts?"
How about asking them for the demographics that are in the report? How about asking them what the percentages are and who got missed as well as how many states were in the report topped off with why they fail to mention the other fact that the VA report also had a warning about using the limited data?
As with all the others, how about asking what they plan to do with the money they end up with in details. After all, shouldn't they actually have a plan in place before they ask anyone to open their checkbook?
Shouldn't they know what has been done, how long it has been done and what is lacking before they even send in their tax exempt application?
So far all we've heard is blah-blah-blah-awareness as they prove they can't even catch the 22 they are aware of so the other 50 or so are totally screwed!
Plus really frustrating when you consider that this was reported way back in 2013 by the Tampa Tribune.
They might want to ask just what the veterans programs that 58% spent went to also. The college grants don't seem to be going to anything directly supporting Vets either but studies that have been done in the past and duplicated now.
ReplyDeleteTotally all too true!
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