DOD/IG Finding: America Supports You.mil used $89,000 in tax payer dollars to buy ASY Promotional Items (Part Two: the Company WE keep)
The DoD/IG also learned that in Jun 2005 Leaderpromos [see link] an on-line promotional products supplier that prides itself on the company it keeps and counts Blackwater USA, Lockheed-Martin Defense contractors, and voting machine maker Diebold, Inc among clients it is proud to be in company with, was paid $1,081 to produce Golf Shirts for sale to tax payers who already paid for them. Leaderpromos was also paid a miniscule $124 tax payer dollars in July 2005 for additional ASY Shirts. In time for the exploitation and fourth year anniversary of 911, Leaderpromos was paid $3,098 in September 2005 for even more ASY Shirts, so all American tax payers could exploit September the 11th. In preparation for Veterans Day 2005, Leaderpromos was paid $550 bucks in our tax dollars in Oct 2005 for additional patriotic apparel. In May 2006 ASY forked out another $12,779 of our money for even more patriotic pins, T-Shirts, and hats (most likely baseball caps). In Jun 2006 (a year after the earlier recorded misuse of tax payer dollars) ASY at lease only used $819 of our money to buy a few more patriotic pins from Leaderpromos. Gearing up for further exploitation of September 11th, ASY bought even more Shirts using our tax dollars in the amount of $3,009.
The total cost to us taxpayers to Leaderpromos [see link] was $ 21,456 that readers is a heafty chuck of CHANGE that came out of our pockets.
I leave it to our readers to cross check purchasing orders with the timing of political-military events such as patriotic observances, freedom walks, and how these purchases coincided with debate, and controversy over American public support for the Iraq War. These are issues sufficent for debate and BS, however the spending of out tax dollars to line the pockets of war profitteers is not laughing matter. There are legal, consitutional, and immoral issue involved here that go far beyond debates over abortion, gay rights, or you name it because how our government uses our tax dollars impacts ALL OF US, especially Our Troops.
Robert L. Hanafin
Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired
VT Staff Writer
The theme of this section of the DOD/IG Report is that patriotism can be bought and sold, and patriotism sells, and though it is expensive, when we do so that not only cheapens patriotism but also makes the costs of freedom worthless by putting a monetary price tag on it FOR PROFIT. If you want to get rich, don’t join the US in the Armed Forces – instead start a patriotic trinket firm that uses us to make a quick buck. We are seriously on the road to a mercenary Armed Forces with all the soico-culutural trappings that surround it. Major Hanafin
Also in July 2005, ASY paid Fort America the patriotic themed item sales and promotion firm $990 in tax payer dollars for ASY magnets. In fact, Fort America will be in operation at the Pentagon itself until September 2009, [daring the Obama administration to do something about it) that’s what nine months into the Obama administration. (wink). Fort American was paid another $1,000 bucks of our tax dollars in Sep 2005 to buy and sell additional patriotic pins, and again in October 2005 in preparation for Veterans Day 2005, Fort America was paid $1,650 in our tax dollars for ASY to claim a monopoly on Veterans Day and patriotic trinket sales in the Pentagon itself as if the DOD/IG is going to make this disgrace go away. They should because us tax payers forked out a total of $ 3,640 to give Fort America the honor of making additonal war profit serving in the Pentagon.
Also in September 2004 while gearing up to once again sell September 11th as a patriotic rallying point because American public support for the Iraq War and President Bush plummeted in the polls, ASY spent $2,025 of our tax dollars to buy Patriotic Pins from Alamo Stamp & Engraving, a division of Texas promotional item giant, J.Kindell Enterprises, Ltd.
[My research into this contract shows that Alamo Stamping does not sell nor have Patriotic Pins of any kind in its inventory, however, Creative Ideas another division of JK Enterprises does specialize in Patriotic Pins of all kinds. Suffice it to say that our tax dollars went to JK Enterprises].
In fact, I almost bought one of their patriotic pins [at left chuckle]. Seriously, this Texas firm that ASY bought and sold patriotism from really offers Patriotic Peace Pins alongside Patriotic God Bless OurTroops pins. Go figure. Major Hanafin – scratching my head, these for profit patriotic promotional firms will take money from anybody. The U.S. dollar knows no political or ideological foundation and the color is green, not blue, red, or white. The only difference is could you imagine the public outcry and outrage if any Pro-Peace organization was able to use U.S. tax payer dollars to promote their PATRIOTISM? Outrage, would come especially from home ‘front’ groups that make up America Supports You.mil.]
Beginning in Sept 2006, ASY started buying Freedom Walk Volunteer Shirts from Mulberry Tree Marketing, a firm that still proudly has America Supports You and Department of Defense ‘clients’ on its website Marque.
This amounts to patriotic trinket sellers like Mulberry Tree inferring they have been endorsed by DOD via America Supports You. It is sort of like a Food and Drug Administration Stamp of approval on meat. Mulberry Tree in fact has a few thousand reasons to endorse ASY. They were paid $1,755 in our tax dollars to provide those Freedom Walk Volunteer Shirts. In October 2006, an additional $1,780 of our tax dollars was forked up to Mulberry Tree. Total tax payer dollars paid from our money tree to Mulberry Tree was ‘only’ $ 3,535. In fact, if that was all our tax payer dollars wasted by the Pentagon, rasing the issue of corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse of the ASY program would not be worth one post much less the multi-postings I’ve done. Major Hanafin
That said, the grand-daddy of all SDI storefront defense contracts using our tax dollars was paid to Buxton Brown [not to be confused with Buster Brown – see link] for what must have been the largest Freedom Walk ever, and hopefully the last at tax payer expense. ASY used a whopping $51,750 bucks of our tax dollars to buy Freedom Walk Volunteer/Participant T-shirts. This was by far the largest tax payer fraud in one purchase of everything found by the DOD/IG.
Technically one cannot call these defense contracts per se despite using a total of
$ 88,907* of U.S. taxpayer dollars, because American Supports You.mil used a storefront (Susan Davis International) to launder the money so to speak.
(*Slight rounding inconsistencies exist because DOD auditor calculations included decimal places.)
In closing, since WE tax payers already paid for ALL of these support our troops items, please send mine FREE to our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to really show our support and stop using my tax dollars to fund America Supports You.mil or any related Pentagon propaganda program.
I strongly encourage all readers who agree with me to contact Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the Pentagon, the DOD/IG, Congress, and the Justice Department to express your outrage and demand that these patrioitic trinkets WE paid for be shipped free of charge TO OUR TROOPS serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to wear or dispose of as they choose.
Robert L. Hanafin
Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired
Readers are more than welcome to use the articles I’ve posted on Veterans Today, I’ve had to take a break from VT as Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor and staff writer due to personal medical reasons in our military family that take away too much time needed to properly express future stories or respond to readers in a timely manner.
My association with VT since its founding in 2004 has been a very rewarding experience for me.
Retired from both the Air Force and Civil Service. Went in the regular Army at 17 during Vietnam (1968), stayed in the Army Reserve to complete my eight year commitment in 1976. Served in Air Defense Artillery, and a Mechanized Infantry Division (4MID) at Fort Carson, Co. Used the GI Bill to go to college, worked full time at the VA, and non-scholarship Air Force 2-Year ROTC program for prior service military. Commissioned in the Air Force in 1977. Served as a Military Intelligence Officer from 1977 to 1994. Upon retirement I entered retail drugstore management training with Safeway Drugs Stores in California. Retail Sales Management was not my cup of tea, so I applied my former U.S. Civil Service status with the VA to get my foot in the door at the Justice Department, and later Department of the Navy retiring with disability from the Civil Service in 2000.
I’ve been with Veterans Today since the site originated. I’m now on the Editorial Board. I was also on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder another progressive leaning Veterans and Military Family news clearing house.
I remain married for over 45 years. I am both a Vietnam Era and Gulf War Veteran. I served on Okinawa and Fort Carson, Colorado during Vietnam and in the Office of the Air Force Inspector General at Norton AFB, CA during Desert Storm. I retired from the Air Force in 1994 having worked on the Air Staff and Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon.
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