Support Our Troops

"The U.S. military doesn't do all its public relations work overseas -- it's also investing in grass-roots efforts here at home," reports NPR's Martin Kaste. "The Pentagon's 'America Supports You' program employs Pentagon staff and private PR contractors to coordinate activities that support the armed forces. 'Freedom Walk' marches, letter-writing campaigns, even supplements in kids' Weekly Reader, are all paid for by the Pentagon itself. One recent effort is a campaign to get people at major league baseball games to 'text-message' their support to the troops on their cell phones... even though those messages aren't actually sent to the troops. ... Much of the publicity work has been farmed out to a private firm, Susan Davis International. For the first year of America Supports You, the firm signed Pentagon contracts for at least $2.7 million." To keep a closer eye on all this, we've begun a SourceWatch article that you can go to by clicking here: America Supports You. Join our volunteer collaborative research community in buidling a fair, accurate and well-documented article on this Pentagon PR campaign.