Gritz To Militia: No More Rambo

The militia should quit wearing camouflage and “stop running around like Rambo,” Bo Gritz said at a three-day exposition featuring an array of survival gear.

“What is a militia for? The militia is for the protection and good of the government,” Gritz said in suggesting it may be time to change the image of the far right.

Gritz is the former Green Beret colonel who brokered peace between government agents and Randy Weaver during the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. He also participated in talks with the anti-government freemen last year during their standoff with the FBI in eastern Montana. Talks between Gritz and the freemen ended in frustration, and he accused them of negotiating in bad faith.

Gritz’s remarks in Portland came at Preparedness Expo ‘97, a three-day event that ended Sunday and included products such as an 11-foot-high, 750-pound shelter called “The Hive,” selling for $1,795.

Gritz, the author of “A Nation Betrayed,” said preparedness and survivalism are vastly different.

“Preparedness is being aboard an ark in a time of Noah,” he said. “Survivalism, to me, is treading water or maybe holding on to a wood chip.”

A group of Portland civil rights leaders decried some of the radicals on the fringe of the expo, whom they accused of promoting racism, anti-Semitism and intolerance of non-Christians.