Following months of investigations, the Army National Guard gave the boot to two Georgia men after the activist group Atlanta Antifascists outed them “for their associations with radical white extremism.”
On Dec. 14, Brandon Trent East received his separation notice from the Guard. “A spokeswoman for the Georgia National Guard said Dalton Woodward is no longer a member. She declined to comment on the terms of Woodward’s separation.”
Both men are members of “a neo-pagan sect called the Asatru Folk Assembly.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has identified the organization as a hate group.
The military has struggled in recent years rooting out personnel with membership in white supremacist organizations or who have expressed sympathy for white power causes. In 2017, the Military Times polled active-duty troops and found nearly one in four had seen signs of white nationalism among their fellow service members. Among non-white troops, the percentage was much higher with 42% saying they had personally experienced examples of white nationalism on the job.
Just this month the Air Force moved to discharge a sergeant stationed at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado after he was identified as a local organizer for the American Identity Movement, a white nationalist organization formerly called Identity Evropa.
