if you are donating to a veteran's charity

or a veteran's organization, BE CAREFUL. do a bit of research BEFORE you give (that's good advice for ANY donation you make by the way to ANY cause)

your money may not be going where you think it is
(there's a link in the article itself to the veteran's charity grades)
Failing to Serve America's Heroes on the Home Front
Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz Report:
In the last two years, generous Americans answering appeals to help wounded and paralyzed veterans have given more than $464 million to charities that have been given an F in a new report card from a leading charity watchdog group.
Those failing charities include the National Veterans Services Fund, of Darien, Conn., which took in more than $6 million in contributions last year supposedly to help veterans' families.
It got a report grade of F from the American Institute of Philanthropy, which says the charity gave out only two percent of its money for charity............
.................As the founder of a charity called Help Hospitalized Veterans, which distributes craft kits to veterans' hospitals, Roger Chapin of San Diego pays himself and his wife more than half a million dollars a year in salary.
Charity is his business. Over the last three decades, Chapin has created more than a dozen different charities for cancer, kids and veterans. ..........