SSD spoke on the phone this afternoon with SOG to discuss our article criticizing the “Faces of SOG” program. SOG spokesman Chris Cashbaugh explained their position and we suggested that they prepare a statement for our readers explaining their side of things. We understand that SOG didn’t intend to send a questionable message but rather were attempting to celebrate SGT Holubz’s service. We applaud SOG’s dialogue with us as well as with our readers and continue to support their products.
We received the story from Sergeant Holubz and immediately connected with his story as I am sure most people who have read it do. The story is harrowing and I thought we should share it with our fans and the world. Honestly, I appreciated everything that service men and women do for our country and think that they are not recognized enough. This was sort of my way to spread a little appreciation and thanks to him and the community.
A short time later we received the picture of him in in his Class A’s. We though that it would be a perfect candidate for our Faces of SOG program that we have been running through facebook for the past six months or so. Typically these have been a photo of a fan that was chosen by other fans to be our profile picture for a couple days. In his case we chose not to have a contest and just run his photo. Again we thought it was a great way honor his sacrifice and thank him. We were not intending this to be an endorsement of SOG just a way to thank one of our fans that happened to be military service member who had a harrowing experience and one of our
products played a key roll in his safety.
Not being a military person myself I was not aware of the Ethics regulations that Soldier Systems was quoting in their post. Now I know that ignorance is not a defense but had I known about the Ethics regulation we would have approached this differently. We do not want to alienate or put any of our fans in situations where they might have ethical issues, especially the ones that are key our nations success and safety. We will approach situations like this in a different manner in the future and are chalking this up to lessons learned.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention and letting SOG share our side of the story.
Thank you
Chris Cashbaugh
Marketing
SOG Specialty Knives & Tools
