If you’ve never heard of Wreaths Across America, they’re a tremendous non-profit program where they lay wreaths at the headstones of our fallen servicemembers.
To date, more than 540,000 wreaths have been laid across 900 locations. They look for corporate sponsors to help pay for the costs of the wreaths to include shipping. Walmart stepped up to help.
According to the Stars and Stripes, the Department of Defense (DoD) says that Walmart is violating its trademarks. The article states,
“Jessica O’Haver, program manager for the trademark licensing office of the Marine Corps, said at least four of the five logos are official seals intended for use only by the DOD. A Marine spotted one of the trucks, took a picture and alerted her office back in December.
Walmart says the logos will be down by Memorial Day.
“It was never our intention to create controversy; we only wanted to honor the brave men and women who fight or have fought for our country,” said Walmart spokeswoman Dianna Gee. “We use those trucks for specific, veteran-related events. We will be replacing the logo with the new design (for Wreaths Across America) in the near future.”
Gee said it doesn’t diminish Walmart’s commitment to the charity, and O’Haver indicated there were no hard feelings.
Thankfully, it doesn’t appear that Walmart will be leaving the charity and will continue to work with them.
“Walmart is very, very pro-military and they support us a lot, and so we work with them a lot,” O’Haver said. “We certainly appreciate all that Wreaths Across America does to honor veterans and those who have fallen. It’s just we can’t appear to officially endorse the program with our logos.”
What are your thoughts? Is the DoD overreacting?
Typical of the pea-brained fatcats in DC. They were afraid someone else would get a little credit for doing this. Since WalMart donated their trucks and drivers the DoD should have applauded them without hesitation.
Nice to see that they worked it out like adults. It is a Walmart program, and a very good program. You just can’t go around using other companies or organizations trademark. I’m sure it was just a over site. I’m more up set that others who are making such a big deal over it.. I’m sure they will come up with a great logo of their own. Thank you walmart for all you do for our Veterens.