The Red Cross is a pathetic organization, in my eyes. I have never donated to them, nor will I ever. I’ll never forgive them for the stories my grandfather told me about being in Europe during WWII and the Red Cross would come out with hot coffee and fresh donuts for the troops - they charged the troops for them. My grandfather would watch them, frozen from the cold, and couldn’t buy a hot coffee as his priorities were elsewhere, financially. Screw the Red Cross.
My mother hates them. When she was a child, her family was flooded out, and the Red Cross was there to help - and they passed out bills for everything they "gave" people.
Funny. I just posted a similar story my father told me about the Korean War. So it wasn’t just a fluke. The Red Cross did treat our troops like crap.
I heard the same stories over and over from my grandfather. One in particular was after clearing the beachheads in Leyti Gulf. Food was sparse, and they were shooting down coconuts and breaking them anyway they could. The Red Cross had some of the GI’s set up a beautiful tent one day. Later he noted they called the officers in first, and he witnessed the officers coming out with coffee and donuts. About late afternoon, after the GI’s were rampantly hungry and angry about watching the officers walk out smiling, smoking, and joking, the Red Cross called everyone else to come on over, they were now open for all!. The GI’s were so excited he said. When they got inside, there were two lines, one for GI’s the other for officers. The officer line was free coffee and donuts, the GI line was “cash and carry”. What was worse, was that he said they were selling sheets of paper for a nickel. He said guys were asking for paper to write home with, and they were charging a nickel a sheet. He said you could get a stack of paper for a nickel anywhere else. He said one guy was very upset about this, and a captain tried to calm him down. The guy was so pissed my grandfather said. Finally, the captain told the red cross lady that there would have no selling of paper, something to the effect of “these boys have been through hell and back, and if they want a sheet of paper, you’ll give it to them, because those amphibious tanks behind the tent, have bad brakes, and one could just roll through here, and if you get these boys mad, they’ll just watch it roll on in”. All the GI’s laughed at the implied threat, and after that, sheets of paper were free.
He never game a dime to the Red Cross, even when the company he worked for told all the employees that they “expected a good donation” from everyone. He told them to shove it.
But he always gave generously to the Salvation Army, and left a good amount to them in his estate when he passed away.
He made sure all of us kids and grand-kids knew how the Red Cross treated them when they were overseas.
I’ve told that story a few times, and someone told me years ago that that was the “international red cross”, not the American Red Cross. I don’t know if that is true or not, maybe someone smarter than me could elaborate.