American Terror: The Military’s Problem With Extremism in the Ranks

foreign most white nationalists were in the military dude and they're coming out of the military today he has white nationalists I know from all of the veterans that I've seen in these extremist organizations that we have a problem [Music] when you encounter these types of individuals that are involved in violent extremism that have military backgrounds is that an added level of threat most definitely I'm a Marine Corps veteran and I'm surrounding myself with fellow veterans who have a right to a Citizens militia we're decades if not Generations into this problem the global war on terror has fueled a new surge in this activity there was the propaganda banders all over the house like Neo-Nazi Nazis they had been training for resistance they made a propaganda video about killing me our presence May elicit a response from somebody in the house you guys comfortable with that hello [Music] thank you [Music] it's January 2020. the presidential election is just months away it's exactly 352 days until the U.S Capitol will be stormed I'm with the right-wing militia headed to a gun rights rally in Richmond Virginia this is my beat I've been covering extremists like this for years I'm a Marine Corps veteran and I'm surrounding myself with fellow veterans who have a right to a Citizens militia it is their right Chris Hill is a Marine Corps veteran but to his men he's the general funeral coming everybody look getting out of the military I missed that you know operating as a unit if you get the command the Lock and Load Make Ready condition one you're putting a bullet in the chamber okay there's something obvious here that defines Hills militia and many others like it Hold Your Position Hold Your Position the prevalence of men who've served in the nation's armed forces his militias headed to the state capitol they're trained organized and armed it's proud boys Oath Keepers or three percenters the presence of people with U.S military backgrounds in right-wing extremist groups has been growing way before Jan 6th and we want to understand why to take the oath doesn't have an expiration date just because I no longer serve in the Coast Guard I will honor my oath my dying breath I will not comply [Applause] okay [Music] no five four three two one the overwhelming majority of U.S service members never join an extremist group or even become extremists but extremist groups on the far right have always prized recruiting members with military experience many of them have weapons and explosives training let's go knowledge of combat tactics an experience Under Fire they can also use that training to train others in the group even those who've never even served and for some extremist groups just having a vet in your ranks can build your credibility and show the movement you're serious it's a controversial and politicized problem in congress with one side of the aisle disputing the need to address it at all but the numbers don't lie that extremists in and out of the military are a problem from 1990 through July 2022 at least 545 individuals with U.S military backgrounds committed criminal acts that were motivated by extremist beliefs overwhelmingly from the far right and it's getting worse since 2010 the average number of those charged has more than quadrupled to over 35 people a year that includes 163 people facing charges for their role in Jan 6. [Music] [Applause] [Music] the people who stormed the capital on that day demonstrated an understanding of military maneuvering militia men moved in Stack Up formations the hid weapons used military-style Communications planned ammo dumps scale and coordination was stunning the fact it happened in full view of the entire country shocked the Department of Defense into action the defense secretary Lloyd Austin III issued what's called a stand down order we need your help I'm talking of course about extremism and extremist ideology views and conduct that run counter to everything that we believe in which can actually tear at the fabric of who we are as an institution The Stand Down was exactly what it sounded like soldiers are made to pause their regular duties and discuss the problem of extremism this particular Stand Down was unprecedented in that it was across all branches of the military and the First full admission by the Pentagon that extremism was a problem the Pentagon has ordered a military-wide stand down General Lloyd Austin taking some strong action to tackle extremism in the ranks of the military ordering a military-wide stand down for the next 60 days what exactly does that mean American academies Arts and Sciences doing a military extremism Roundtable so I'm going to Boston for that Bishop Garrison is a veteran of the US Army and was put in charge of the defense secretary's working group on extremism following the stand down why did the defense secretary call for this standout in particular the secretary directed the entire the entire department to take a 60-day stay now meaning that within 60 days apart from your training you would take some amount of time to sit and talk through some of the key aspects of the policies that he had uh he wanted us to focus on kind of take a beat to say like hey let's let's reinvigorate the discussion around what our constitutional responsibilities are what our values are as a as a culture within the military as well as an organization so it's basically just asking soldiers to reflect on what extremism is and why alongside with their leadership reflecting on uh what extremist activity potentially means uh what it means to be a part of the good order and discipline of their units what just the camaraderie and the service that we share together within the United States military according to Garrison part of the initial Pentagon response sounds kind of like a group chat on what it means to be a soldier but while the reality of The Stand Down might be less drastic than it appeared it was a clear acknowledgment that extremism in the ranks was something the Pentagon needed to face what's maybe less understood by military leadership is that we could be at a uniquely dark moment in the history of this that's saying something given that the phenomenon started as far back as the Civil War [Music] every major American war has been followed by a dramatic surge in extremist activity immediately after the Civil War a band of Confederate Veterans formed the first version of the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee Confederate War hero Nathan Bedford Forrest led the group and was infamously its first Grand wizard by 1915 in the midst of World War One and during The Craze for America's first Blockbuster action movie The Birth of a Nation which portrays the clan after the Civil War the second iteration of the clan comes back pulling from disillusioned vets returning from Europe membership nationwide exceeds 4 million using a pro-white and explicitly anti-immigration platform an early version of America first [Music] World War II reignites the clan again along with the Civil Rights Movement a World War II Navy veteran named George Lincoln Rockwell founded the American Nazi party in 1959. we can have our country once again free we can have it once again right in 1963 it was a Marine Corps vet with Munitions training who helped bomb the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama then after all of this we have the Vietnam War which really is the first truly Modern War in American history uh how does it have an effect so the Vietnam war is hugely important this is Professor Kathleen blue nobody knows this history better she's a renowned expert on the far right and they're links to the US military we're talking about rolling deployments individual rotations profound strategies that feature indiscriminate violence Mass killing and weapons that are incredible leaps forward in their Technologies of harm all of that refracting almost immediately back into the Homeland and we see people in the movement talking about this very directly when they form the white power movement talking very directly about an ethical call to as they say bring the war home to inflict that violence on the American population because they feel so betrayed by their experience in Vietnam what the Vietnam War does is create a shared experience of trauma disaffection frustration with Society frustration with the government that can bring together Nazis klansmen this is when people stop wearing the white robes and hoods in many public-facing demonstrations and start wearing camo fatigues and significantly issue directives for things like veterans you're allowed to wear your duly earned Badges and medals you're allowed to wear those things while we harass people who are not white in our community today's Oath Keepers and three percenters are part of a history of paramilitary style right-wing militias the Baloo says really started in the post-vietnam era and one man in North Carolina helped lead the way are you willing to defend your homes and your family Glenn Miller is a long time white supremacist activist in and around Greensboro North Carolina Miller's group changes its name across time so it begins as the Confederate Knights of the KKK it becomes the Carolina Knights of the KKK and finally the white Patriot party and it's an early example of people using military formation in Clan activity in this region so Miller famously outfitted his people in chemo fatigues had them wear their duly authorized military decorations Miller and the white Patriot party also used their proximity to Fort Bragg to obtain weapons and explosives from Fort Bragg itself during this time in the early 1980s he was involved in obtaining tons and I mean literal tons of stolen weapons and Munitions from the Armory at Fort Bragg so you literally start seeing guys in this hyper racist hyper extremist organizations are stealing weapons from the US military because in part of their access to it active duty servicemen stealing weapons and material on a major scale yes and this is the first time I think that the military really confronts the problem with active duty troops being involved in the white power movement the Gulf War we might understand was an attempt to get America out of the Vietnam syndrome by having a big successful War quickly that people could sort of use to exercise the Demons of Vietnam it didn't work that well um in that way for some of the people who actually did the work of fighting and one of them was Timothy McVeigh [Music] explosive devices had been prepared when they talk of hatred we must stand against them when they talk of violence we must stand against them but and here's where Blues research really caught my attention we could be at an unprecedented moment in this historical timeline go the global war on terror has fueled a new sort of surge in this activity as people who have combat experience from a more recent set of words abroad to come home and find their footing here Blue's point is that we're in a truly dangerous moment the war is in Iraq and Afghanistan have introduced millions of veterans into the most politically divided moments in living memory one 2021 house committee on Veterans Affairs reports estimated that between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand individuals with military backgrounds associated with roughly 300 right-wing militias which is 25 of those groups what we do know from the earlier history of this movement is that there will be a surge in extremist violence and other extremist activity we know that we're seeing some activity now we don't know if we're at the crest or if we're just at the uphill slope we also know that whatever we're seeing now is only part of the picture because the history of this earlier movement shows us that what we can see in real time is only the public facing above ground machinations of these groups when we know that they have always worked both above ground and underground at the same time we occasionally get Windows like the arrests of the guys from Adam Waffen and the base that give us a view for a moment of some of that underground activity because they were plotting murder for their first mission to kill two high-ranking anti-fascist members who reside in Bartow County what we're seeing is only a small slice of what we should think is happening there's never been a momentum stop there's never been a decisive trial we're decades if not Generations into this problem we have an archive of how it works we just don't have the real-time information yet to know exactly where we are what the is this doing time to die this is propaganda footage from one of the paramilitary groups that our expert mentioned the base the base not only had men with military backgrounds but is one of the more dangerous far-right groups to emerge from the US in recent years it's a designated terror group in several countries the FBI has had multiple Nationwide counterterrorism investigations against it the base is an underground Neo-Nazi organization which had cells across the country planning and training to accelerate the collapse of the US government and bring on the quote race war if you want the white race to survive you're going to have to do your part they plan mass shootings assassinations the whole thing was founded and once led by Ronaldo nazaro a former Department of Homeland Security employee turned DOD contractor who is said to have worked for the U.S Special Forces in the early 2010s an FBI agent told me there's an open investigation into him we couldn't meet up face to face because he now lives in Russia far from the reach of the FBI but he agreed to a phone call right I mean we're looking for certain type of members Nazareth specifically wanted men who served or were serving for their military trade craft in an early questionnaire for the base there was clear indications that the organization was looking for people who were veterans and who had you know soldiering skills well strictly from a training standpoint people who had military experience have field experience you know they're trained uh in in fieldcraft and that's what we're looking for and of course there's also a small unit tactics type of training that we were involved with which was strictly geared towards post collapse type of scenario I mean if you just imagine the authorities are unable or unwilling to maintain Law and Order for whatever reason people in those areas are going to have to rely on themselves for for defense at least five members of the base had military experience including Brian Lemley and Iraq war veteran and Patrick Matthews next Canadian soldier who together conspired to attack the same Virginia rally in January 2020 that I was at with a three percenter militia the two were arrested in January 2020 just before the FBI claims they intended to launch their Civil War by attacking a gun rally in Richmond Virginia at its height the base hit close to 50 members across the country and abroad including a cell in Michigan that was one of the group's most violent led by 27 year old U.S army Dropout Justin Watkins the FBI and State Police launched a raid on their training base in October 2020 that took down the cell Watkins and three other members would eventually be arrested we earned the impression that this like this place is like not being occupied but you guys don't know that for sure right yeah without having any without of going up there recently then there's no way to know until we get there which is why I wanted to stop here right and have that conversation this is one of the Michigan State police detectives who worked the case he agreed to walk us through the investigation and take us to the compound where everything went down but he wasn't exactly sure what we'd find so in light of that what would you what would be like the safety precaution I think we could stop at the road in and assess like does it does it clearly look like it's vacant but this is absolute private property where you won't be able to enter any buildings won't be able to enter house even if we find a door open yeah we can't walk through it our presence May elicit a response from somebody in the house you guys comfortable with that I'm comfortable with that okay okay roll [Music] being here in this part of rural Michigan you can really understand why the base used it for their training [Music] okay so I'm just gonna go up to the house so you guys just wait right here so it's kind of a really old school creepy farmhouse honestly I can see it from here and I know it is there that Farmhouse is directly where they were they had a line of I think six guys and they were shooting firearms and they had a big giant swastika flag and Justin Watkins is the man at the end doing a stigile they made a propaganda video about killing me because of my reporting the base had threatened to execute me in a propaganda image that disseminate it online we've decided not to show it here the Michigan cell also made a video with a hit list of journalists and public figures Watkins the Michigan sales leader had enlisted in the US Army [Music] hello hello Watkins had made this Farmhouse outside the small town of badax Michigan some 200 miles from Detroit into a fortress [Music] it's where he drilled the cell in military tradecraft they used this Farm to make training videos to put online to try and recruit yeah there's no sign anybody's there been there anything like that it's almost like exactly like they left it like when I were when we were here really like was the last time you hear after the race yeah the only thing I'll say is I'm comfortable with approaching you get a couple of shots up there we won't go into any buildings or anything if anybody shows up just go to your car yeah okay I saw the wires hanging off their cameras doesn't look like anything's hooked up or anything anymore so see the see the gun case that camouflage gun case laying oh yeah I guess that blue wall that's a gun case oh right there yeah yeah that's a rifle case and right up here at the back door I mean there's a bunch of old rifle casings right there I mean oh wow and those are two two three rounds that travel several miles there's bullet holes in the in the fire Barrel over here look how many guns did you find when you were there I think we documented the I'm just the first knock and talk I think that we documented right around a dozen and every one of these windows every one of these doors all had a gun that was propped up against it wow so they were ready if somebody tried to they replace an intent they had been training for resistance there was AR style handguns shotguns some older older like antique style guns there was the propaganda banders all over the house so like Neo-Nazi neo-nazis we treated this worst case scenario it wasn't just one location this cell of the base imitating military style tactics allegedly stashed gear and supplies in multiple spots across this area of Michigan [Music] of many buildings there's a line of them and that's why you can see another building over there they were part of the Carroll Center the mental hospital for a long time and they've sat bacon for probably about a decade or more now it sounds like a haunted house I believe it was through intercepting online Communications that the FBI had learned about this weapons cash here it goes back to somebody who has military training yeah right and they know large buildings isolated areas they've got some cover here they can see long distances they've got concrete between them and us I think they put a lot of thought into this place foreign to Lieutenant Pisha the cell used this last stop as a sort of Safe House it's an old prison building right it's meant to keep people in so I'm assuming it's also meant to keep them out you can't get into these easily these have always been locked up so for them to gain access it would have taken some work you're not climbing over anything I think that's no that's that barbed wire does look legit what's in there a door lock that's been ripped off I think it's an equipment Locker that's actually a jaw bone to something say the teeth there's a dead animal you find a dead guy you're writing the report Watkins was kicked out of the army for according to the FBI violent behavior and failure to adapt when we asked the U.S military force records the Army said he entered in August 2013 but declined to give a reason why he was discharged but it was the FBI that took down Watkins this is one of the main agents on the case who requested anonymity to protect against any threats what was it like investigating Justin Watkins for me personally he was unprecedented in his desire to carry out an act of violence now we know because of the the indictment against Mr Watkins that he actually had some military training and was in the U.S army for two months I believe that's correct what did he learn there so Mr Watkins touted his even though short-term uh experience he touted that very highly as qualifying him to teach others about those tactics he was enlisted to be a member of the Infantry from that he has said that he learned Maneuvers for both advancing to conduct tax as well as evading responding counterparts when you encounter these types of individuals that are involved in violent extremism that have military backgrounds is that an added level of threat oh most definitely what we do is we have to assess first of all what level of training the individual receive in the military how long were they in the military did they have combat deployments in addition to the training itself those individuals receive they've had the ability to experience different surroundings from those experiences they may be more adapt at maintaining a level of calmness during stressful situations such as if someone wants to conduct an attack or engage in level violence they've seen experienced those things before we take all that into consideration and planning and preparation for uh arrests for search warrants for the level of violence that that person has the skill set to carry out the special agent got me thinking if the FBI is this worried about extremists who've had military experience and training then what exactly is the Pentagon doing to prevent them from being recruited in the first place after the stand down the dod implemented what it called critical initial steps to combat extremism among some of the new policies tattoos would boot you from the service if their gang or extremist related also Tweeting or liking posts advocating for Insurrection and the overthrow of the US government are now prohibited activities the dod worked to better Define terms so soldiers knew if they were crossing a line between political speech and extremism it updated the pre-separation counseling script read to soldiers as they prepare to leave the military to remind them of their oath and also gave them FBI tip line numbers to report extremist activities and recruitment questionnaires now ask you about your extremist affiliations was about two and a half hour test the higher your score the more jobs you would academically qualify for and that's what that's what we want you to have options this is Sergeant Erica Jones she's a 17-year vet of the Air Force and current recruiter obviously I'm sure that there's people that come here that you don't want to sign up how do you weed out the bad apples we do have pre-qualification questions that we ask the individuals and once they answer those questions that gives me an idea of right off the bat like hey it's this individual eligible or qualified to start the process to join do you have any other checklists that you kind of look at for extremists there are some forms that we do have them fill out and one of those forms is our Air Force memorandum disclosure it asks questions related to affiliation with extremists as well as gangs say I'm a Neo-Nazi and I walk through the door and I've gone through that whole process is there anything physical or anything more specific that you look for or is it pretty obvious um and so we would um definitely like visually look to make sure you know different maybe tattoos that could you know jump out at us asking those questions blatantly and checking body language to see hey do I think this person is trying to withhold information um things like that when there's a question on the the the checklist or on the recruitment form were you a member of an extremist organization I guess I wonder who is who is a part of an extremist organization would then say yes to that right with that we asked a question we go over the form and then once if everything still checks out then we have them filled out what's called an sf86 it's an online application it asks them for their background information it goes into a lot of depth into their history and so when they go to maps to process they are going to start a background check which includes fingerprinting and pulling their records to make sure that they are in fact telling us the truth about their history it's not just at the recruitment stage that extremism can seep into the military some soldiers have become radicalized after and even during their service everyone knows me as the hammer because I made an Instagram account one time called The Hammer the best way to put it is I advocate for white sovereignty Aryan sovereignty you know and I think that there's nothing more important Chris Paul house is a minor player with a sizable following on the dark net of Internet Nazis incredibly easy in 2021 I helped expose his plan to start a movement to make Maine a white ethno State among his followers pullhouse is also a four-year veteran of the Marine Corps and was honorably discharged he never saw combat why did you join the Marines um I joined the Marines because it's just like the thing to do in the family man I mean I'm an 18 year old kid there's not a lot of deep thought going on right then you know so for a lot of people you know going to the military can be kind of a diversifying experience did you not feel that way when you went in when I was in the military yeah of course exposure to blacks when I got out of the military I almost exclusively hang out with blacks for years it's not about knowing people understanding them having empathy for them it's literally power and that's what a lot of you guys you want to replace this love and on the human rights with your ability to understand see decipher power that's all that matters I am interested in the military side of this and how either it helped you it actually didn't make you feel any more the way you feel now or it was sort of this this moment where you saw something that changed you here's the thing dude most white nationalists were in the military dude and they're coming out of the military today he has white nationalists I think it's just happening everywhere man and like the military is honestly like a weird social experiment that reflects the civilian World anyway you know what I mean I I I think what you're seeing is just consistent so you don't think it's a particularly radicalizing place or because you said the white Nationals are coming out of it white Nationals come out of it yeah but they're coming out of everywhere man they're coming out of every community do you think that the military and the veteran Community tends to be more radical yeah I'd say I'd say especially from the point of view of the left because you guys are like anything right at Ted Cruz is radical I would most certainly believe that the majority of white veterans are radical do you think that the war on terror and the you know the two Wars we were in obviously that created tons of veterans yes fueled I think it's fueled a lot of people on the right do you think that's that's correct heck yeah I mean you've seen your buddy bleed and die for some right what is uh what has our blood bought us where does the Aryan get to cash out we spilled a lot of it dude for a hundred years man a whole lot dude since the Civil War dude and do you think that that's something that you know some some veterans come out thinking I think everyone thinks it man everyone from a military family dude why bleed for this pullhouse is just one example of a war on Terra era vet who turned to extremism after a service and he isn't alone so this is the command center yeah this is where my company and non-profits are headquartered Christopher Goldsmith is like the anti-pull house whereas Chris pullhouse never actually deployed into combat Goldsmith served in the Iraq War and some of the bloodiest years I served from 2004 to 2007. as a forward Observer the way that I explain that to people is if you watch something like Forrest Gump and a bunch of infantry guys go through the jungle and they get ambushed and everybody lays down and then there's a nerd with glasses and starts yelling into a speaker and then things start blowing up I was a nerd with the glasses yelling into a speaker so I rolled with the Infantry well my job was to blow things up when he came back home and got out he had intense symptoms of PTSD when I got back I was I was broken I was incredibly angry I mean angry like I can't even think of a a word the military was my life and it left me incredibly vulnerable I mean I started having my doubts about the war in Iraq my first day in solder City when instead of being greeted with waving American flags I had little kids throwing rocks and Bricks at my face that was a real mind at 19 years old uh so when I got out of the army my friends were still dying on the deployment that I ended up not going you know still getting mutilated by IEDs for a war that was like had nothing to do with 911 why the are we there a lot of folks think well if this person's radicalized if they're a white supremacist we should strip away their benefits we should take them away from the VA well I I understand the inclination to want to take everything away from them but forcing someone who's already radicalized into a more desperate position which is what I went through what I experienced is extremely dangerous because of his dislusionment with the military Goldsmith fell in with what he describes as hardcore libertarian radicals who are arming themselves against the supposedly tyrannical Obama government but he got his life on track and went to college eventually becoming an expert on extremism among vets now he works to expose extremists online and does open source intelligence work on various groups he's unimpressed with the stand down and the pentagon's approach to its problem with extremism but he also blames a highly polarized Congress which has broad constitutional authority to regulate the military and control its funding now as a veteran who understands extremism do you think the government is doing enough to prevent it not only within the ranks and active duty but also among veterans I don't think that the government has done anything yet to effectively weed out extremism from military I don't think they've done anything to address the problem of white supremacists being drawn into the military or white supremacists radicalizing members of the military the Senate armed services Committee just came out with a report where the Republicans plus the independent Senator Angus King wrote that they believed it was offensive to service members and Veterans to look into extremism in the military and therefore no money should be spent on it what makes this such a big problem is we can't measure it and we can't measure it because Republicans keep saying oh there's not a problem so we can't invest any money in studying it I mean I know from all of the veterans that I've seen in these extremist organizations that we have a problem and we need to study the problems so that we can address it [Music] the report Goldsmith mentions was actually a vote in the Senate armed services committee the committee called on the Pentagon to Halt its fight against extremism describing it as an exceptionally rare problem the vote was republican-led the personal subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on the current state of military personnel recruiting and retention in the Department of Defense Senator Tillis thank you madam chair what are we doing we're trying to separate the country is that what we're trying to do I was a football coach and I recruited to build a football team from all over the country rural urban areas and you can bring them all together and you form a team well the same thing we're doing here in the military but sir wouldn't you want if you're building a team if there was extremism in that team that was calling against certain types of players in that team to keep cohesion but that's when you bring them all together so you don't think the military should be looking at extremists at the recruitment phase it should be once they're in Illinois obviously there's going to be some parameters you know you don't want to eliminate anybody until you have to eliminate them you see what I'm saying right now we're just we're pointing fingers at everybody that you're this you're that I mean how do you know look I I worry about the impact of extremism anywhere and if we have reason to believe there are problems then we should investigate it's that straightforward it was the position of Republican colleagues that this was a very isolated issue within the military so this committee recently called in the Pentagon to Halt its investigations into extremism in the military why well I think the the dod is already prepared to address it and that they are but I think we just started in this committee today I mean you got one side of the owl saying it's full of a bunch of woke administrators you got the other side of the olive saying it's a bunch of extremists both views are wrong and it's hurting recruiting and retention but there's clearly a historical record for this and also there's been investigations in the past have clearly shown that there's an issue why stop it now I don't I don't believe that the uh the leadership in the dod is all of a sudden turning off the switch and not looking at indicators [Music] we'd been asking DOD leadership for close to a year to speak to us on camera about extremism in the ranks and what was being done to address it then in recent weeks Pentagon spokesperson General Pat Ryder had taken questions for the links between extremism and soldiers at least 110 members of the military were identified in report by the ADL of having possible links to The Oath Keepers what steps if any has DOD taken to begin to investigate these individuals who were cited in this report yeah I don't have any specifics in terms of individual cases right but what I would say writ large is again we have clear guidelines and policy on what is and is not acceptable behavior within the Department of Defense and if you violate those policies or those guidelines or there's a reason to investigate we will and we'll take appropriate action on those I mean again I don't have any information on individual cases that you're you're talking about it seemed like General Ryder was reluctant to talk about the issue publicly in any specific way but the Pentagon finally got back to us and agreed to the interview but then something unusual happened on my way back to DC on the way down here the Pentagon emails me and backs out of the interview now they agreed to it a week ago this is the second time in a week that they've now rescheduled it or backed out I'm sorry that it's been tough for you to get a hold of us wanted to let you know that due to unforeseen circumstances General Ryder will no longer be able to participate in the interview they said it wasn't a scheduling issue really this is telling me just how divisive an issue extremism in the ranks is for the Pentagon the dod didn't even ask for our questions but they did Issue this statement to us the following day it didn't go into details though and seemed almost as concerned with highlighting efforts to preserve free speech in the military as it is with combating extremism frustrating end to a journey that actually feels like it's just beginning I don't want to come away thinking that the military is full of extremists it's not that's not the point I'm trying to make but what we do know is those members of the military Community both active duty and Veterans who have been engaging in extremist ideologies they are a problem and we know that because they were leading and were instrumental in the attacks on January 6th and if we don't start thinking about this problem differently and the people in power don't start dealing with it differently this could get a whole lot worse before it could get better I think the big beavers that that public pressure and because the Pentagon doesn't share information we the experts the people watching this documentary people even in the Pentagon down the hall don't know what we're talking about we don't know how big this problem is we have an idea based on what we're seeing outside of the Armed Forces but I don't think anybody really knows outside of the Pentagon how big the problem is I'm Michael laremont editor-in-chief of Vice news too often traditional news outlets shy away from the real stories and experiences of those living through Global conflicts not Vice news our reporters are on the ground fearlessly covering the human stories that shape our world you and millions of others can continue to read watch and listen to Vice news for free but we hope you'll consider making a one-time or ongoing contribution of any size advice.com contribute every contribution no matter how big or small helps support the journalism Vice news brings to you every day thank you

Channel: VICE News

Views: 3,900,312

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2022, Extremism, far right, military, army, us military, Right wing, veterans, gun control, gun violence, america, USA, US extremism

Id: lVkBVExuXSQ

Length: 43min 27sec (2607 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 20 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/NoKiaYesHyundai]

“Extremism is only okay so long as it’s against the people we need dead.”

[u/Gordon_Explosion]

None of the people in that screenshot are active duty military.

I never really talked to a black person before I joined the Marines (I'm a person of cornfields). Once in, four of them became the best friends I ever had. Racism wasn't tolerated in my command in the 90s.

[u/LeepaTime]

It doesn't sound like the military is a breeding ground for extremism, more that , by it's very nature, the military is going to attract some radical types, some with nazi idealogy.

I see alot more evidence of racism and extremism in our police forces than in our military.

[u/AspireAgain]

I was in the US Army and Army Reserves. It's just my personal experience, but I knew of one guy that was a racist but not an extremist who revealed his views to me. On the whole you will never find a more diverse working and living experience anywhere else in the United States than the military.

[u/BrownMan65]

I have a friend that went into the Navy 4 years ago and he just recently got out. First time I got to hang out with him since he deployed was at our mutual friend's bachelor party. Turns out he chugged the "certain races aren't compatible with modern society" kool aid. It was actually really scary to see how he thought and how he spoke about people because it was a complete shift from how he was pre deployment.

We're also both Indian so there's the whole model minority stereotype that he used to justify why he believes the things he said.

[u/Mr_Blkhrt]

Vice so intensely meh these days

[u/airbornejoel]

Did 21 years of service. Did not become racist

[u/brown-skidmark]

Teach men to hate and then complain when they hate, fuckin hypocrite

[u/Raulbo47]

This is so stupid. They made a documentary on a very very small population of dumbasses. As a Hispanic male that has traveled around the country with a black co worker for years we have never had any problems with hillbilly’s like this. This documentary is to put fear into people that keeps racism alive to keep people divided. I by far am not saying this racism does not exist im saying it’s not as widespread as they make it seem.