One of the nation's most recognizable charities for wounded veterans reportedly spends as much money on lavish conferences and parties as it does on services and programs.
According to a CBS News report, which aired Tuesday with a
follow-up Wednesday, spending by the Wounded Warriors charity on conferences and meetings went from $1.7 million in 2010, to $26 million in 2014 — about the same amount the organization lays out for combat stress recovery, its top program.
The charity brought in more than $300 million in donations in 2014, CBS News reports.
"Their mission is to honor and empower wounded warriors, but what the public doesn't see is how they spend their money," Army Staff Sergeant and Purple Heart recipient Erick Millette, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after his service in Iraq in 2006, tells CBS News.
Millette was hired as a public speaker for the Wounded Warrior Project in 2013 but quit after two years, CBS News reports.
"You're using our injuries, our darkest days, our hardships, to make money. So you can have these big parties," he told CBS News.
More than 40 ex-charity employees also charged the organization's spending was out of control, CBS News reports.
One former worker tells CBS News "a lot of the warriors I saw needed mental health treatment. They don't get that from Wounded Warrior Project."
Millette asserts he'd "raise issues" with charity officials, and ask "Why aren't we doing follow up? Why don't we have any case management?"
But the response stunned him.
"We don't call warriors. Warriors call us," he said he was told.
"As a disabled veteran, it just makes me sick," he tells CBS News.
The organization did not give CBS News an official comment, but provided a recipient of its programs for an interview.
"Wounded Warrior Project contacts alumni and family support members multiple times over the course of the year, we call each and every one of our alumni and family support members on their birth month to be able to ensure and check in, see how they're doing, and see if they need other programs and services," Capt. Ryan Kules tells CBS News.
"And then also have multiple opportunities for them, and us to follow up and see how they are doing."
Kules tells CBS News that the charity, and that it is committing $100 million over three years for a "warrior care network" in a partnership with four hospitals to provide outpatient mental health services to post-9/11 vets.
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