I AM a Militia.
I grew up on Rambo and Red Dawn. I was shaped by the military life as an Air Force brat and the lore of fighting off a Russian invasion, singing “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” (to the tune of Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys), and the resilience of southern patriots fighting the Yankees for liberty to live as they saw fit. I had heroes like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Ronald Reagan, and Orrin Porter Rockwell. And of course, Captain Gene Haines.
These men and ideas, to me, represented what defined America, freedom, and leadership. Today they would probably all be called examples of toxic masculinity, but the only thing they were toxic to was weak men and weak ideas. I played with cap guns, squirt guns, army men, toy and model fighter jets, and everything tough-guy.
When I had writing assignments or historical projects in school, I always took on the topics that triggered excellence in human leadership – whether in battle or in peace time. I wrote an essay on Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign speech where he kept talking from the caboose-stage for another house and a half after being shot by a slimy John Schrank. I made a large 3D model of the battle of Valley Forge, including period-appropriate military symbols and blood stained tents where the battle hospitals were located and where many men died.
I’m not a military freak; I can’t even afford my own Sherman tank. But I do love the patriots who have fought and given all so that we can enjoy the liberties we have today. Even if most Americans today don’t understand or appreciate those liberties or the price that has been paid for us to have them.
All that said, I love my country, and hate my government. No, not just when democrats are in control. I despise the ever growing tyrannical power that governments at all levels consume and enforce. When I hear people say “there should be a law to stop that”, I cringe. Every law – whether written by Congress, interpreted by the courts, or passed by a zealous city council with little or no understanding of how these things affect every-day Americans – every law is a threat to our liberty. That’s not exactly how my dad taught me, but it’s how I heard it more and more over the years.
I remember one sunny day in History class at Northside High School, Coach Mims was talking about the dangers of different laws that had to be changed over time. He talked about the importance of understanding what is right and wrong regardless of what the law says. Slavery was legal at one point, he’d said. So was drowning a woman you suspected of witchery. He often got into these diatribes about the importance of knowing right and wrong. This guy had my attention.
Then I got into working FOR the government in a sort of ironic twist of events (that’s a whole ‘nother story). Over the last twenty five years I’ve had the honor of working with the US military, various three letter (and four letter) agencies, and even reported at the highest level a few times. I remember hearing about the siege at Ruby Ridge where the government attacked and killed members of Randy Weaver’s family. Later, when I worked with a couple of those agencies, I heard inside stories that made my blood boil.
Even on the bureaucratic side, I learned how corrupt government was. When President Bush issued Office of Management and Budget Circular 76 to force government agencies to prove their employees were making policy or protecting the people if they weren’t outsourcing their work to the private sector. I was tasked – as a contractor assigned within the Department of Treasury (back when the Secret Service was under Treasury and Homeland Security wasn’t a thing yet) to help them strategize systemic methods of preserving government personnel over having to rely on contractors and private companies. I asked a senior executive how he saw the problem and some of the solutions we were floating. He explained that they would just change everyone’s titles and job descriptions to be related to making policy. I was sickened. President Bush wasn’t a hero to me, but his policy was! I was all about fixing the government. But the bureaucrats were all about protecting their permanent fiefdoms.
I seriously lost a good bit of hope in America that day. I’ll never give up on America, the American Dream, or that republic that Franklin and his peers gave us back in 1787. But I’ve also arrived at a place where I will never trust my government to do what is right for the sake of right.
So when I moved from Charlotte, North Carolina down to Red Bay, Alabama, I was at a different point in life. Aside from the mess that I’d made of things over the past few years, I was excited to have a house with neighbors far enough away that they couldn’t hear me working out back. I was excited to have a creek running through my yard big enough that I could build a permanent water-wheel power generator. I was glad to be far enough from anything that government don’t care what I did.
In fact, when I went to the local power company office to talk to them about my plans to build a micro hydro power generator, the old guy in charge there told me to just do what I want and don’t bother them with it. This was freedom! This was living life without constant in worrying about the 4,400 federal regulations and countless state and local restrictions on how I lived my life.
As it happened, I was looking for like minded men who were interested in defending our way of life and the liberties enshrined in our founding covenants. I found and joined a group that called themselves a militia. Actually, they called themselves Three Percenters based on the idea that it only took three percent of the population of the American Colonies to stand up to King George III and his armies. You can debate whether that figure is true, but III%ers believe they have a right and an obligation to prepare to protect their communities and even their nation from mobs, tyrants, and foreign invaders. They see themselves as the guns behind every blade of grass that kept the Japanese from attacking the homeland.
The strange part about that in Alabama is the tyrannical controls that the government down in Montgomery presume to have over such things. The state of Alabama boasted the most lengthy constitution of any government anywhere on earth until just recently (2022). Any county or town or bumkinville that wanted to make a change of any kind had to get a state constitutional amendment. Well, that same government and its 1984-ish constitution presumed the power to define who could have a militia and even which limits were approved (thee were three), and any other would have to be approved by the governor.
Imagine, the Governor must approve you forming a group of patriots to protect yourself from a tyrannical government! I’m pretty sure what what the Declaration of Independence was all about. In part.
I joined the state-wide militia and eventually became a leader there. I encouraged being more open about who and what we were. If the governor wanted to challenge us, we would fight that fight. Not like everyone grabbing their guns and rounding the wagons (unless it came to that). But like everyone being prepared to defend our liberties in the public square, in the media, in the courtroom, and on our private lands.
At one point I wrote a letter to my state legislator declaring my rights to defend myself as an individual and as a militia. I wasn’t daring the government to come after the militia. I was declaring to the government that our rights are not based on their permission slips, but on the powers endowed by God Almighty! I challenged him to discuss this issue with me and openly declared myself to be a militia.
I was quite surprised a few weeks later to get a call from that legislator. He introduced himself and invited me to visit him at his home to discuss the matter. I thought that was a statesmen-like invitation, so I accepted it. A couple weeks later I sat at a table on his back patio as we discussed the issue of a state government that presumed to decide who could take up arms against tyranny. Of course my group wasn’t trying to start a war. No, we weren’t interested in toppling the government, no matter how out of touch they were. But we weren’t interested absolutely prepared and preparing to fight any body of men that would trample our liberties.
He agreed on all my points. That was a bit disarming. He even agreed that it was embarrassing to have such an Orwellian state constitution. I was excited! Energized, I asked him to join our cause – not as a member of our militia, but in the fight to right the state laws that presumed to limit our powers to form and exercise as a militia.
I said the law can’t tell me I can’t form a militia. I AM a militia!
Now I need his help to restore the legality of my rights in Alabama.
“No, I can’t do that. I’m near retiring and can’t go ruining all I’ve built.” He went on to explain that he had a reputation to uphold and interests to support even to his last day in office.
I was disgusted. To me, a man who knows what is right and clearly sees what must be done, but chooses not to do it for reputation or image is a coward. I left a half finished meal on his table and tanked him for nothing.
Not long after that I moved to Tennessee. Not because of that, but that’s didn’t slow me down any. I’m no time I found another III% group that stood for the same values. They had a bit more structure and formality to them, so joining was more than showing up to a meet on a random Saturday. Once I got through to the right people, I was invited to meet a couple of them in a public place where we could have a private conversation. That led to a letter I was invited to write to ask that I be admitted. Shortly after that and some level of background investigation, I was interviewed before a panel of state leaders.
That’s where it got funny. One of the leaders pointed out that they knew I had worked for the FBI, the DEA, and a bunch of other organizations with which this three percent group took particular disfavor. Of course they knew; I disclosed that in my letter. I have led development of multiple intelligence analytics systems. It’s an exciting field. Not to say I was interested in spying on the government or revealing secrets o rained from it (I reject that premise outright), but to be open about where I worked and the skills I brought. He asked me how they could trust someone like me to keep the sanctity of the militia where it should be while also working for various TLAs (three letter agencies).
“You shouldn’t.” I explained that, in my experience, this kind of work isn’t based on trusting someone, but on plans that are compartmentalized, principles that are defensible before any tribunal, operations that are defined by the necessity for liberty, and aligned in common Christian values. Anything else is either boy scouts playing Army in the woods or a serious group headed toward serious time in a federal prison for cause.
I guess they accepted that. I was admitted, and enjoyed my time there. On one of the meet-ups we were qualifying with our handguns and rifles. I carried my .45 caliber Smith & Wesson with an extended magazine and my Palmetto State Armory AR-15. I qualified with both on my first tests, and was pretty happy with that. Before we switched to the next item on the agenda, the firearms instructor asked me if I’d like to try a few shots with his AK-74.
Would I like to? Of course! I’d fired a wide range of firearms, even some larger systems at Quantico, but hadn’t had my hands on a Kalashnikov AK-74. Just as we had done during my qualifying tests in the range, the firearms instructor stood behind me and to my right while the safety officer stood behind me and to my left. I took the first shot and smacked the target at the far end of the range.
I exhaled and squeezed the trigger. This second shot did not go as planned. The gun exploded in my hands with a loud crack that suddenly dulled my hearing, burned my hand, spewed black markings on my face, and left the AK dangling down like a limp rope. I knew this could be really bad, but I seem to experience enough “accident prone” events often enough in my life that I don’t panic. I held steady as the safety officer stood and the instructor both called out “Cease Fire!” The both approached to check on me. I could feel some burning on my hand but nothing severe. I reported that I was ok, but held steady for them to check things out.
Then it hit me just how sad it was that my new friend’s AK-74 was now a bundle of torn metal and wood. Useless. I felt bad for ruining his rifle and began to apologize. He told me it wasn’t my fault. He had loaded some old World War Two Russian surplus ammo that we all knew had a chance of being the over-powdered stuff the Russians sometimes left for their enemies to pick up. I’d found a few of those rounds in 7.62x54R for my 1891 Mosin-Nagant rifles before, but nothing as explosive as this.
As we wrapped up exercises that day, the captain gave me a new patch for my tan cap. It said “Suck Meter” and showed a gauge with the needle all the way in the red. I still have that patch on my hat.
Of course, I didn’t explain that patch to Rebecca that day when I got home. She was vehemently opposed to me attending militia meetings.
With that, I stepped away from the group, but held firmly to my beliefs and my position that I am a militia. I think I see myself today as more of a strategic contributor to the cause of freedom. As Thomas Hefferson famously said, “Freedom is lost gradually from an uninterested, uninformed, and uninvolved people.” Even back then Franklin and Jefferson saw the fragility of our liberty.
While I don’t see myself as some Meal Team Six field operator in a boys club, I do believe I have a duty to defend what is right, and even to help people understand the risks of being uninterested, uninformed, and uninvolved. I guess, as I get older, I see myself duties even more aligned with helping others to see.