Hate groups have uneasy history with military base
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Published: August 7, 2012
A billboard along the main road into Fort Bragg, N.C., in the mid-1990s read: "Enough! Let's start taking back America." Below the slogan was the telephone number for the National Alliance, a white-supremacist group.
Wade Michael Page, who killed six on Sunday at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, must have driven by that billboard dozens of times while stationed at the base back then. It was paid for by an active-duty soldier at Fort Bragg who served as a recruiter for the hate group.
Page was at Fort Bragg in 1995 when two neo-Nazi soldiers from the 82nd Airborne killed a black couple in nearby Fayetteville, according to a former soldier who served with him.
At the time, Page was assigned to a unit that specialized in Latin American affairs. Many members were fluent in Spanish, but Page wanted only to learn German, said Fred Allen Lucas, 43, who served with him in A Company, 9th Psychological Operations Battalion.
Once, while on temporary duty in Germany, Page got drunk and started goose-stepping down the street Nazi-style.
more:http://www.stripes.com/mobile/news/us/hate-groups-have-uneasy-history-with-military-base-1.185075
Sikh temple shooter promoted extremist views during his Army years
OAK CREEK, Wis. — The gunman in the Sikh temple shooting here was steeped in white supremacy during his Army days and spouted his racist views on the job as a soldier, according to some who served with him.
“It’s kind of amazing he was able to stay in, especially given what was going on around base at the time,” said Fred Lucas, a former soldier who served with Page at Fort Bragg, N.C., in the 9th Psychological Operations Battalion.
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Page, a soldier from 1992 to 1998, did little to hide his white-supremacist beliefs, Lucas said, but he could not have predicted that Page would act out violently.
Among the open signs of Page’s extremism were his tattoos. Officials at Fort Bragg — where 21 soldiers were identified as white supremacists after a skinhead soldier was convicted of murdering a black couple in 1995 — conducted tattoo inspections to track down anybody with extremist markings. Yet a tattoo on Page’s left shoulder referencing the 14-word mantra of skinheads apparently went unnoticed.
The credo reads: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Page drove a Volkswagen Thing, a boxy vehicle resembling a Nazi staff car, that he had repainted from orange to red. With white trim and black tires, it mirrored the colors of the Nazi flag, Lucas said.
more: http://www.stripes.com/mobile/news/sikh-temple-shooter-promoted-extremist-views-during-his-army-years-1.185085