Food City's "Salute" ad

This ad -- presumably aired during the Memorial Day weekend (and for now, I'll overlook the distinction between living veterans and those who died in the line of service) -- is getting a fair amount of attention in their local market as well as worldwide via YouTub (sic).

It begs the question however, as to how willing Food City is to put their money where their advertising mouth is.

For instance...

+Do they actively recruit veterans to join their workforce, including hosting or supporting job fairs for veterans where their stores are located? (In many southeastern states, the unemployment rate for veterans is way higher than for civilians).

+Do they guarantee that their employees who are National Guard or Reserve members and are deployed will have jobs when they come home? And, yes, deployments are still underway.

+Do they give any priority to hiring/promoting spouses of service members, who are trying to build careers that are portable from one community to another?

+Are they actively supporting local programs to assist homeless veterans in their communities? (Again, the statistics show significant percentages of homeless vets in their markets and nationwide).

The Food City corporate website does not yield answers to any of these questions, so I pose them to DU'ers who live in those communities where their stores are located.

I want to believe that they are backing up this heart-rending message with concrete actions, but haven't ruled out the possibility that they are simply -- and shamelessly -- pandering to the drivers of yellow-ribbon-magnet-adorned SUVs whose idea of sacrifice is shedding a tear when they watch this ad.