Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient Erick Millette used to be a spokesman for the Wounded Warrior Project. The Army Staff Sergeant worked for WWP for two years until he finally quit.
“You’re using our injuries, our darkest days, our hardships, to make money. So you can have these big parties,” he told CBS News. Millette described the amount of money spent on staff.
“Let’s get a Mexican mariachi band in there, let’s get maracas made with [the] WWP logo, put them on every staff member’s desk. Let’s get it catered and have a big old party,” he described.
“Going to a nice fancy restaurant is not team building. Staying at a lavish hotel at the beach here in Jacksonville, and requiring staff that lives in the area to stay at the hotel is not team building,” Millette continued.
Another employee interviewed agreed. “It was extremely extravagant. Dinners and alcohol, and just total accessm” one employee explained. He continued, saying that for a charitable organization that’s serving veterans, the spending on resorts and alcohol is “what the military calls fraud waste and abuse,” he described in the interview.
One of the main points of contention is the four-day conference in Colorado for 500 employees. It comes in at a mind-blowing cost of about $3 million.
“Donors don’t want you to have a $2,500 bar tab. Donors don’t want you to fly every staff member once a year to some five-star resort and whoop it up and call it team building,” said Millette.
