From recruiting office to the dark web

Researchers look at the link between military experience and extremist organizations

From “This Is War,” a report that looked at the military experience of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists:

• 12% of the people who had, as of March, been charged in federal court for storming the Capitol, had military experience.

• The vast majority of those charged (93%) were veterans, not active duty.

• 37% of those involved in the insurrection had ties to domestic violent extremist organizations such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other toy-soldier groups.

Right after the siege, the Dept. of Veterans Affairs and the House committee on veterans’ affairs announced they would study extremist organizations’ recruitment efforts among veterans. Results of those studies have not yet been published.

The issue of extremist views within the military is not new, and though the attack on the Capitol has increased pressure on the Pentagon to address extremism in their ranks, this recent AP story says the issue is “deep-rooted,” with the military sidestepping opportunities to create real change in the ranks. In short, from the AP:

• The military’s judicial system has no category for hate crimes, which makes it difficult to quantify what crimes are motivated by prejudice.

• The Defense Department has no mechanism by which to track the number of troops ousted for extremist views, despite repeated pledges to root them out.

• The Uniform Code of Military Justice does not address discriminatory incidents, and rank-and-file people of color commonly face courts-martial panels made up of all-white service members, which is not precisely a jury of their peers.

Executive Order 9981 (signed in 1948 by Missourian Pres. Harry S. Truman) eliminated segregation in the armed forces. Was it a political move? Certainly. Did it also reflect Truman’s own evolution when it came to understanding the importance of racial equality? Yes. But as we know, there is life on paper, and then there’s real life. Rank-and-file members are increasingly diverse, but, from a Council on Foreign Relations report, the officers club is still a mostly-white revue.

I’m just spit-balling here, but if you’re drawing recruits from a segregated state (pretty much all of our states) who’ve never had exposure to other ethnicities/races/cultures, you are asking the military to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to integration. Like the military, the U.S. may be more diverse. But we are still segregated.