Get to Know the USO with 8 Fast Facts

To many Americans, the USO is best known for sending comedians, musicians and pro athletes across the globe to entertain American troops deployed overseas. But service members and their families know the USO also provides services and highly valued programs at home and abroad. For 75 years, the USO has been keeping America’s military and their families connected to the people, places and things they love, throughout their service.

Here are 8 fast facts about the USO’s accomplishments and the scope of its mission:

1. The USO has more than 180 locations around the world, including four centers in Afghanistan that collectively receive more than 34,000 visits each month.
2. In 2015, these centers hosted nearly 10 million total service instances.
3. The USO has 30,000 volunteers who, last year, gave 1.5 million hours of time and talent to support service members and their families.
4. The USO supports our forward-deployed; wounded, ill and injured service members, their families and caregivers and service members in transition, military families and families of the fallen.
5. The USO has distributed more than 3.2 million prepaid international calling card to deployed service members.
6. Since launching Special Delivery in August 2013, the program has supported more than 3,600 military spouses and expectant active-duty mothers.  Fourteen Special Delivery events were hosted in 2015 and 22 are planned for 2016 in the U.S., Pacific and Europe.
7. The USO Transition 360 Alliance leverages the USO’s global resources and the expertise of four nonprofit partners specializing in military-to-civilian transition and provides key services to help service member and military families make a successful transition to civilian life.
8. The USO has provided support to U.S. military service members and their families since 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt merged several disparate groups to create the United Service Organizations.

©Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. 2016