A U.S. Marine is being investigated after unearthed social media posts revealed his neo-Nazi sympathies.
Lance Corporal Mason Mead, who is assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines in Hawaii, maintained a Twitter account under the handle @Jacobite_Edward, in which he said he was a 20-year-old “counter-revolutionary” from Alabama. He regularly tweeted material that was sympathetic to Nazi Germany and Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
As Task & Purpose noted, Mead also posted a photo of himself in blackface within a Marine barracks and also photographed high explosives being arranged into a swastika with the caption “epic”. A spokesman for the 3rd Marines said Mead was being investigated for his “derogatory online comments.”
“Any form of racism or discrimination undermines the core values of the Marine Corps and is not tolerated,” the spokesman said. “NCIS [Naval Criminal Investigation Service] is thoroughly investigating this situation and the command will address any misconduct at the appropriate judicial or administrative level.”
The arrest of Chris Hasson, a Coastguard lieutenant who had amassed an arsenal to attack prominent Democrats and journalists, has re-focused attention on the creeping dangers of far-right within the armed forces.
In June of last year, Marine Lance Corporal Vasillios Pistolis was found guilty in a summary court-martial of marching with white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017. After 28 days of confinement, he was subsequently booted from the Marines. Two months after the rally, it was also revealed that the bodyguard of Richard Spencer was also a member of the Alabama National Guard.
In 2009, the FBI released a report which noted that white supremacists were explicitly targeting military personnel for recruitment. “Extremist leaders seek to recruit members with military experience in order to exploit their discipline, knowledge of firearms, explosives, and tactical skills and access to weapons and intelligence,” the report read. A separate 2009 report by the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) warned that “military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities” could potentially become swayed by far right extremism.
When the DHS report was released however, conservatives went ballistic. Former House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said that the “Secretary of Homeland Security owes the American people an explanation… [why] her own Department is using [‘terrorist’] to describe American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation.”
It’s not just the U.S. armed forces which are reported to have white nationalist in their ranks. In September 2017, four serving soldiers in the British Army were arrested for being part of the neo-Nazi group National Action, a proscribed terrorist organization which the British Home Office decides as being “virulently racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic.”
In August 2017, the German Special Forces Commando (KSK) unit were accused of far right behavior at a party, including giving Hitler salutes and listening to far right music.