This is an excerpt from the chapter "Outside the Gate":
“Lloyd Austin ramps up the fight against right-wing extremism within the military.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III convened the military chiefs and civilian secretaries of the armed forces on Wednesday to begin intensifying the Pentagon’s efforts to combat white supremacy and right-wing extremism in the ranks.
Mr. Austin also ordered that all military commands ‘stand down’ at some point in the next 60 days to reinforce existing regulations barring extremist activity in the military, and to ask troops for their views on the scope and severity of the issue, the Pentagon press secretary, John F. Kirby, told reporters. He said many details of the ‘stand down’ — a pause in operations that the military often uses to address safety issues — need to be worked out.
‘This is very much a leadership issue, down to the lowest level,’ Mr. Kirby said, citing what Mr. Austin, a former four-star Army general, had told the Pentagon leaders on a video call.
In the days since a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, senior leaders of the 2.1 million active-duty and reserve troops have been grappling with the reality that several current or former military personnel joined the rioters.
Last year, the F.B.I. notified the Defense Department that it had opened criminal investigations involving 143 current or former service members. Of those, 68 were related to domestic extremism cases, according to a senior Pentagon official. The ‘vast majority’ involved retired military personnel, many with unfavorable discharge records, the official said.” (Schmitt, 2021)
“‘We need your help’: Lloyd Austin calls on troops to help fight extremism in ranks
‘We need your help,’ Austin said during a five-minute training message while standing at the Pentagon press room podium.
‘I’m talking, of course, about extremism and extremist ideology — views and conduct that run counter to everything that we believe in and which can actually tear at the fabric of who we are as an institution,’ he said…
In his first public comments to the media Friday, Austin described two incidents of white nationalist behavior he experienced as a soldier.
As commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, he said he was surprised to find that he had skinheads in his unit who had committed off-base murders. He also referred to comments made by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley during the aftermath of a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2014 in which a radicalized soldier killed three fellow soldiers and wounded 16.
‘I’ve seen this before. I’ve lived through it as a soldier and as a commander,’ Austin said, calling on service members to read and discuss their oaths to the Constitution.
The secretary also warned of the ‘aggressive, organized, and emboldened attitude’ of extremist groups’ recruitment and operations. He said the increasing speed and pervasiveness of social media was allowing hate groups to reach and recruit service members more easily.
‘It concerns me to think that anyone wearing the uniform of a soldier, or a sailor, an airman, Marine, a guardian, or Coast Guardsman, would espouse these sorts of beliefs, let alone act on them,’ he said. ‘But they do. Some of them still do.’” (Mahshie, 2021)
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