Does Hate Have A Home In Military? Armed Services Under Scrutiny To Determine Whether They Allow Extremist Groups To Thrive
Before there was Timothy J. McVeigh, there was Michael Tubbs - an Army Special Forces sergeant and Persian Gulf War veteran who was imprisoned for stealing and stockpiling enough military explosives in Florida to blow up the Gator Bowl.
Before three white soldiers allegedly murdered a black couple outside Fort Bragg, N.C., in December, there was Glenn Miller - a Green Beret who created the White Patriot Party with about 3,000 followers, many of whom also had served under the U.S. flag and now were fomenting a race war against blacks, Jews and the federal government.
And before them all there was Louis Beam.
He is considered a grandfather of the growing anti-government, anti-integration movement in America. As far back as 15 years ago, the former Vietnam War helicopter gunner was one of the first to hit on the idea of recruiting U.S. soldiers and veterans to outfit and train paramilitary organizations.
Back then, the setting was south Texas and the “enemy” was nothing like the broad agenda of today’s radical groups. The target was Vietnamese fishermen who were cutting in on the white shrimpers’ take off the Gulf Coast.
“At one point, Beam was putting together five separate training camps,” mostly with soldiers and veterans recruited from around Fort Hood, Texas, recalled Mike Reynolds, a researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center who monitors the white supremacy movement. Now Beam serves as an “ambassador-at-large” for the Aryan Nations, spreading that organization’s racist gospel.
Because of this history, those inside and outside the armed forces do not shrug off the latest episodes of hate violence as merely isolated aberrations. Rather, the military now finds itself under scrutiny to determine whether it has become a place where white supremacists, anti-government zealots or others with extreme views may thrive. And whether, at taxpayer expense, it provides training in martial skills and weapons to people who may pose a danger to society.
A commission appointed by Army Secretary Togo West after the Fort Bragg slayings is reviewing U.S. installations here and abroad, working under a March 1 deadline to detail the extent of the problem and how best to deal with it.
Among the questions: How diligent is the military and how much can it really do given the nature of the all-volunteer service and the society around it?
Senior Pentagon officials, including West, contend that while even one white supremacist in uniform is too many, it is unfair to characterize the military as a breeding ground for hatemongers.
The number of service members involved, even tangentially, in extremist causes is believed small - about 1 percent of the 1.6 million men and women in uniform - and seems comparable to the number in the general population.
Those entering the military carry the same views represented in civilian society and have the same right to hold them, military officials say.
“People bring with them byproducts of their socialization process, their prejudices and beliefs,” said Army Sgt. 1st Class Rebecca Marcum, a Pentagon spokeswoman. “We strive to educate all our members on acceptable and unacceptable behavior.”
She said the services legally are barred from asking enlistees “about their associations with any type of political or social organizations or other affiliations.” And no enlistee may be rejected because of beliefs or membership in outside organizations. Any official move must wait until a service member acts on hate beliefs.
But some experts believe the military has become more lenient than warranted in monitoring service members’ activities.
“Today’s Army is different from ever before,” said Charles Moskos, a Northwestern University professor and a leading military sociologist. “There is more privacy in the barracks. There is more off-base housing. And the generals, quite frankly, don’t monitor people as well.”
Since those attracted to military service include some with a particular interest in weapons - accused Oklahoma City bomber McVeigh, for example - military officials have an obligation to be diligent, some critics say.
Said Mary Mauney, who works with a network that tracks hate groups: “Certainly until something like (the Fort Bragg incident) happens, … the military downplays the presence of white supremacists. And the danger is that these men and women - mostly men - are being trained to use weapons. They are being trained to kill and they are being recruited by white supremacy groups so they can teach civilians how to kill.”
West said that one “lesson” already has been clearly learned: that military supervisors must find a way to get closer to the lives and thoughts of their troops.
“We won’t force ourselves into their homes. But it does mean we should talk to our soldiers and be alert to how they spend their time,” he said.
“We have to be able to train together. We have to be able to work together. We have to be able to live together. Because we may have to fight together.”
In some ways, it seems curious that the military, which was a generation ahead of the civilian world in desegregating and promoting equal opportunity, should find itself tarred with hate crimes now.
But the problem has become clear in the last 15 years. Since the Beam recruiting drives in south Texas and Miller’s attempts to launch a race campaign out of the rural Carolina Piedmont, more and more hate groups are turning to communities around military installations for recruits. In the last 10 years, a series of incidents has showcased those recruitment drives outside camp gates.
Among them:
1986 - The Klanwatch project in Montgomery, Ala., identifies 10 active-duty Marines as White Patriot Party members and demands a Defense Department investigation. Three Marines are discharged.
1990 - The Army investigates posters displayed at a military post in Frankfurt, Germany, summoning people “tired of rap music, AIDS and being intimidated because you’re white.”
1991 - Three Green Berets at Fort Bragg are arrested, and two of them are convicted, in a plot to stockpile stolen weapons, allegedly for a race war.
1992 - The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command reports on contacts between servicemen and skinheads and new Nazi groups.
1993 - Three Marines assault a gay man in Wilmington, N.C. In San Francisco, four sailors and two Marines are jailed for beating a homosexual. “They were apparently under a lot of pressure and decided to relieve it by going gay-bashing,” explains prosecutor Chuck Haines.
By the end of the year, the House Armed Services Committee concludes that racial slurs and jokes are common at four of the 19 military bases it reviewed. Skinhead activity is present at several installations.
1995 - The Oklahoma City bombing leads to charges against a trio of ex-Army buddies who harbor deep hatred for the federal government. McVeigh’s attorney, Stephen Jones, suggests that his client was influenced by hate groups operating alongside Army posts overseas.
And the double-slaying outside Fort Bragg leads to an interim Army finding that at least 22 soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division are skinheads or hold extremist views on race.