SAVANNAH, Ga. — Tyler Merritt wears a wristband that catches the light. The inscription on it reads: Army CPT Clayton O. Carpenter NY In Loving Memory 15 January 2014 Georgia NSDQ.
Carpenter, like Merritt, was a helicopter platoon leader for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Known as Night Stalkers, they conduct reconnaissance missions at night almost always on short notice, using very high speeds at low altitudes.
Merritt looks somber. “I have almost died for this individual on my wrist, and I literally threw him the keys to a ticking time bomb,” he says.
“I was supposed to be flying the aircraft. But I just happened to be getting yelled at by my commander, so I got called back from taking off. Left my beret in the aircraft. Gave the keys to an individual that ended up having the tail loader fail and crashed here on Hunter,” he says of the training exercise accident that happened on an airfield base nearby.
“I had to talk to the fiancé, who he was going to propose to that weekend. I had to go empty out his apartment. I had to go call the parents . . . That individual was the best person I’ve ever met. He put his retirement towards his brother who had mental handicaps. Those are the things that make you really think ‘What is your purpose here?’ ”
Merritt, a 34-year-old West Point graduate, is always thinking about his duty to his country, and not just because he wears a tribute to a fallen comrade on his wrist. Six years ago, he launched a small startup selling patriotic T-shirts out of his garage. When a fellow soldier, Maj. Edward “Flip” Klein, lost both his legs and his right arm in an IED explosion in Afghanistan in 2013, Merritt started donating a portion of his proceeds toward Klein’s recovery.
The company — named Nineline after the military code word for getting wounded soldiers off the battlefield — has since flourished, going from Merritt’s garage to a business run out of a 60,000-square-foot building, producing a complete range of patriotic apparel that will employ over 200 people by the end of this year.
“We don’t shy away from our patriotism,” Merritt said. “It is at the heart of how we began a business.”
While many major American companies, like Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Delta Air Lines, appear to have taken an anti-Second Amendment stance by dropping discounts for NRA members, and the NFL continues to struggle with the issue of players bowing out of the national anthem, Nineline is unadulterated. The company enthusiastically supports standing for the flag — and the right to bear arms.
Shirts with slogans like “All Rifles Matter”; “Stomp My Flag, I’ll Stomp Your Ass”; “I stand with the American Flag”; and “Faith, Family, Friends, Flag and Firearms” are flying off the racks. Merritt says their sales peak during holidays like the Fourth of July and also when gun ownership comes under attack in the news.
Everything at Nineline comes in four basic categories: patriots, veterans, first responders and Second Amendment — themes that aren’t exactly courted by larger clothing retailers.
In filling this niche, Merritt is reaping a big revenue. In 2016, just three years after he launched, the company posted an astounding $9.8 million in sales and was named one of the fastest growing companies in America by Inc. magazine. Merritt predicts they will hit over $20 million in sales by the end of this year.
The company’s original mission of helping veterans has expanded, too. Merritt says 100 percent of their nonprofit sales goes directly toward meeting the financial and specialized needs of severely wounded vets.
“Once a month we create an online store where people can purchase products with the logo of their cause, and the proceeds will go towards that person. For Klein, we created ‘Team Flip’ to raise money to offset his mounting medical bills,” Merritt said.
To date, Nineline has raised almost $1.5 million for wounded veterans, Merritt said.
Most of Nineline’s employees are military veterans, and the company also hires former prisoners and works with a local agency to hire people with autism and place them in jobs with repetition. “We still need to service our soldiers and veterans here at home. They deserve our help, not just through apparel or the jobs we offer. We are starting to build tiny homes for homeless veterans here beginning this fall,” said Merritt.
“I always think big, and I’m still going 100 miles an hour,” says Merritt, who retired from the military in 2017 and runs Nineline with Miles Burke, a Savannah College of Art and Design graduate. “That is why we give back. That is why it means something to everyone who works for us. It means something to . . . our fan base because it represents what they’re buying into. Our brand. Our lifestyle. Our love of country.”
