On November 11 2021, social media users shared a purported United States Postal Service (USPS) card, acknowledging their dedication to “pubic service”:
In the above tweet from Veterans Day (November 11 2021), the poster explained:
Fact Check
Claim: Military veterans employed by the United States Postal Service (USPS) received cards in 2021 thanking them for their "pubic service."
Description: In 2021, military veterans working at the United States Postal Service were sent cards which seemed to misprint ‘public service’ as ‘pubic service’. The cards were circulated on social media platforms. These cards were intended to acknowledge the Veterans’ service on Veterans day.
This is what Louis DeJoy had distributed to Veterans at the Postal Service today. Seems he goes to the Trump School of Spelling. “Dedicated themselves to PUBIC service.”
An image was attached that appeared to be an identification badge of sorts, with “VETERAN” in red typography at the bottom. The text of the card contextualized the attribution to DeJoy, reading:
Your service to the nation has protected our freedoms. I am proud to count you among the patriotic men and women who have dedicated themselves to pubic service in the military and at the Postal Service™.
– Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
A United States Postal Service press release from November 9 2021 explained the reasoning behind the cards:
To honor employees who served in the military, the Postal Service will present them with special gifts of appreciation for Veterans Day.
Former and current members of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard will be presented with a certificate of appreciation signed by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, a certificate holder, a card that identifies the employee as a veteran and can be worn behind USPS ID badges, and a blue lanyard.
The items were recently sent to region, area and headquarters business units for distribution.
The organization will also release a special Veterans Day video during the week of Nov. 8.
The Postal Service is one of the largest civilian employers of former and current members of the armed forces, who make up approximately 15 percent of the organization’s workforce.
Hiring Our Heroes, a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, recently presented USPS with the Wounded Veteran and Military Caregiver Employment Award in recognition of its contributions as an employer of wounded veterans.
We searched “I am proud to count you among the patriotic men and woman” in an attempt to locate a matching statement from DeJoy (or additional variations on the image), but no results for that specific string of text were returned. However, a Twitter search for “USPS veterans” resulted in additional images of the same card with the same misspelling:
A fourth image of the card was tweeted by a Twitter account for 21CPW.com, a postal workers’ message board. That tweet linked to a thread titled “USPS insults, dishonors Veterans by thanking them for their PUBIC Service,” where the misspelling appeared again:
Finally, we located a November 10 2021 post to the United States Postal Service subreddit, r/USPS. It appeared to be a fifth unique image of the 2021 USPS Veterans Day card, once again featuring the “pubic service” misspelling:
Beginning November 10 2021, images of a United States Postal Service (USPS) card to acknowledge Veterans Day began circulating on social media. Although one image iteration was popular, several other separate, unique photographs of the USPS Veterans Day card with the “pubic service” misspelling were shared to Twitter and Reddit. Because of the numbers of independently displayed photos and the press release, we rate this claim True.