America Supports You.mil gave preferential treatment to one group it screened.

DOD/IG Reports preferential treatment given by the ASY Program to at least one Homefront group screened by ASY and given this ASY stamp of approval, pgs 25-26 of IG Report stated:

FINDINGS: During the audit, the DOD/IG was not able to fully review all of the allegations of preferential treatment of Home Front groups screened by ASY as part of program operations. However, there appears to be validity to some of the allegations made by troops and military family groups not authorized to have the ASY [U.S. government] stamp of approval.

As shown in this report, DOD/IG also found that program operations were not focused on its primary mission of communicating support to the troops regardless how many Homefront groups given preference had or have this logo or something similar on it. Further, DOD/IG found several instances of the ASY program soliciting corporations and using multiple avenues to gain media attention to promote or “brand” [buy and sell] the ASY program.

RECOMMENDATION: The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs [Mr. Robert Hastings, who replaced Ms. Allison Barber] needs to establish adequate controls to ensure that the Department does not give preferential treatment to select nonprofit organizations.

[Note: any IG recommendation that a Pentagon office or organization [ASY] take action to ensure something unethical is not being done means that something unethical was being done. BTW this stamp of approval relationship still goes on and will during the Obama administration with the quick fix that DOD has begun placing non endorsement caveats as it continues linking to the SAME groups ASY screened. Major Hanafin]

Robert L. Hanafin

Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired

PROUND member of many patriotic troop and military family
groups that PREFER not to have a government stamp of approval.

DOD/IG investigation: DoD Public Affairs [during the watch of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, SECDEF Robert Gates, and their subordinate Ms. Allison Barber] gave preferential treatment to select home front organizations [screened by Republican appointed ASY leadership for partisan political correctness].

Certain nonprofit organizations were provided with a DOD memorandum of understanding (MOU) that was used to legitimize their organizations [as a U.S. government stamp of approval that their organization was patriotically supporting our troops and military families while others without the ASY logo were not only unpatriotic in not supporting the Bush administration but also did NOT support our troops and military families – so the spin went. Major Hanafin]

http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/AmericaSupportsYou/other_support.html

Being it is tax time, here is where the waste of tax payer dollars once again was highlighted in the DOD/IG report. One organization was funded by DOD through its public relations contract with Susan Davis International (SDI). Thought highly rated for its fundraising efficiency and ensuring donations actually did go to our troops, question remains about the ethical standards of accepting tax payer funding to do so. That group was Operation Homefront, which of course went into a damage control mode in response to the DOD/IG report downplaying the findings as administrative in nature just as the current head of ASY; Robert Hastings, Jr. has downplayed the IG report as an administrative audit verses a criminal investigation.

To their credit, the OC Watchdog – Your Tax Dollars at Work (blog and media coverage similar to the Fleecing of America) part of the Orange County Register Newspaper in California did an expose on this preferential treatment.

According to OC Watchdog Reporter and Blogger Teri Sforza in her media blog article, “‘Preferential treatment’ helped military charity’s fortunes to skyrocket,” Teri shows how the preferential treatment worked using the Pentagon’s own IG Report.

Teri reported that the, “America Supports You” program – [was a DOD] public relations effort launched by the Bush Administration to build support for the war – was plagued by mismanagement, misspent millions of dollars and gave preferential treatment to private “support-the-troops” charities, creating “a potential liability.”

Then she goes on to say that based on DOD/IG findings, one “charity benefiting from this arrangement was Operation Homefront, until recently a Santa Ana [CA]-based nonprofit that “provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind and to wounded warriors when they return home.”

[Question and concern: If an organization such as Operation Homefront exists then why does each service need its own entity that well provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind and to wounded warriors when they return home? Each service has had such a worthy effort up and running long before the birth of Operation Homefront and related organizations circa September 11, 2001, and Bush administration, and will continue to have them long after Operation Homefront becomes a memory? Major Hanafin]

Ms. Sforza noted that, “before Operation Homefront signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Department of Defense – effectively a federal/military version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval [using the branded ASY logo] – Operation Homefront’s revenues were a modest $1.5 million.The year after it signed with the Department of Defense, revenues skyrocketed nearly 800 percent – to $12.8 million. (See this link to Teri’s article for chart.)

She notes that despite Operation Homefront going into a damage control mode, it was the first charity listed in the “Preferential Treatment” section of the DOD/IG report.

“DoD Public Affairs gave preferential treatment to select homefront organizations,” the report says. “Certain nonprofit organizations were provided with a DoD memorandum of understanding (MOU) that was used to legitimize their organization.” [Page 25 of the report should PROVE very interesting reading for those most concerned about where our tax dollars go. Major Hanafin]

Operation Homefront even boasted on its web site that it had a Pentagon stamp of approval (i.e. the ASY logo) and that it is “one of a select few charities” to operate under an MOU from the Department of Defense. ”Although the MOU does explicitly state that this agreement does not constitute DoD endorsement of Operation Homefront, the memorandum provides for DoD support, promotion within the military, and DoD’s recognition of consistent goals with its own program,” the DOD/IG report said. “We believe the MOU does constitute an endorsement by DoD,” reported both Teri Sforza of the OC Register and the DOD/IG.

Operation Homefront’s defensive response was,” While the MOU provides official recognition from the DoD, it does not entitle us or anyone else to any preferential treatment.” That defense does not jive with DOD/IG findings, however though the DOD/IG and other Pentagon legal entities are not authorized to do any current or future prosecution of home front organizations linked to the ASY website, the unethical behavior of DOD employees both uniformed and civilian is putting it politely another question.

See both the DOD/IG Report and OC Register story for how the DOD/IG examined IRS tax refunds on various home front organizations created around 911 and finding “…contributions from Department of Defense contractors and America Supports You corporate supporters, including one from [Susan Davis International] the Pentagon PR firm selling ASY that got $8.8 million for as the DOD/IG put it “branding” America Supports You ($10,000 contribution to Operation Homefront); and one from Fleishman-Hillard, another Defense Department contractor ($5,000 contribution to Operation Homefront). In addition, ASY corporate supporters such as Wal-Mart, Tri-West Healthcare Alliance, and Toyota gave cash and non-cash contributions totaling $597,732 to the nonprofit,” the report says. “Operation Homefront was also added to the PGA TOUR, another (America Supports You) corporate supporter.” See both the DOD/IG Report page 25 and Ms. Sforza’s coverage at LINK.

In all fairness to Operation Homefront, and because OH is rated so highly by Charity Watchdogs, one has to question WHY did the DOD/IG focus only on Operation Homefront out of what over 300 home front groups ASY had screened?

Even doing a Google Search using the phrase “America Supports You MOU” the overwhelming number of hits is for the MOU between Operation Homefront and the Pentagon. However, there is something wrong with any investigation that focuses on only the first home front group to be granted an official stamp of approval.

The DOD/IG needs to go back and provide better examples across the board on exactly which troop support groups got an MOU and which did not in order to make preferential treatment an issue. Picking only on Operation Homefront does not prove any home front organization got preferential treatment despite the fact that they did.

More to come on part two – Why did the DOD/IG focus on Operation Homefront and NOT on The Military Family Network?

Robert L. Hanafin
Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired

Robert L. Hanafin

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.