December 2023 — MHCE Newsletter

WWW.MHCE.US Monthly Newsletter | 21
The IG report also included
instances of alleged criminal
gang activity: There were 58
allegations of gang activity across
the military.
However, the report did note
that, out of all the suspected
extremism and criminal gang
activity, 68 of the total cases
were investigated and cleared or
deemed unsubstantiated.
In the U.S., extremist activity,
including neo-Nazi, white
supremacist and anti-government
movements, has been growing,
and numerous violent plots by
veterans and even active-duty
troops have been thwarted in
recent years. Experts on extremist
movements have warned about
the growing potential of more
violence and future attacks,
similar to the Oklahoma City
federal building bombing in 1995
that killed 168 and was carried
out by an Army veteran.
In February, a former National
Guardsman, Brandon Russell,
who founded the Atomwaffen
Division, a neo-Nazi hate group,
was charged with plotting to blow
up Baltimore's electrical grid
and cause as much suffering as
possible. Russell, who allegedly
kept a framed photo of Oklahoma
City bomber Timothy McVeigh,
was sentenced to five years in
prison in 2018 after an arrest in
Florida for possessing explosives.
In the wake of the Jan. 6 siege
of the U.S. Capitol building, the
Pentagon tried to make a show
of dealing with the problem of
extremism among troops after it
became clear that veterans as well
as some active-duty troops were
among the mob that stormed the
halls of Congress in an effort to
halt the certification of the 2020
election.
including the military-wide
extremism training stand-down
ordered by Austin -- were largely
symbolic and were widely
considered as just another box for
commanders to check.
One active-duty noncommissioned
officer said that, aside from the
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