Mike was a Nazi in his teen years. Six years later, he supports Black Lives Matter. It worries him deeply that he was so close, in the angriest stage of his life to shooting people with his gun.
Mike was able to see the man on the ground and he knew he was going. It was a chaotic night in Oakland, California. The wind was strong and whipping palm trees into a frenzy.
Protests for Black Lives Matter broke out in the US three days after George Floyd's murder.
Mike was protesting alongside his girlfriend, but when night fell and police began firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them, they decided to leave. As they walked back to their car along the streets littered with burning rubbish bins and black smoke, they noticed a van in white pull up. They heard the gunshots.
A man in uniform was lying on the ground as the van drove away. Mike began to move towards him, trying his best to recall the first aid training he had received in the military. A police car arrived, and a gun-wielding officer suddenly jumped out and told Mike to get off the road.
He later learned that Dave Patrick Underwood (a federal officer who had been protecting the courthouse) had died on the spot. Mike is still haunted by the fact that he couldn’t save him more than a year later.
Mike was a close friend of Underwood and had been marching on that day with his family.
He was also connected with the man later accused of his murder. Steven Carillo was a sergeant on the same California Air Force Base where Mike enlisted only a few years before.
This was not all.
Mike knew a secret. Mike had a secret. He kept a uniform of grey-green khaki fabric and a Nazi symbol on his collar at home.
Mike kept the poster up to remind him of his past, a person who loved to kill people.
Mike, like Carillo had fallen into extremism and became a follower in America's violent far right.
Mike was in his final year of high school when he witnessed the first wave Black Lives Matter protests unfold across the US. But he didn't think about taking part. He says, "I thought they were Satan incarnate."
He just had met a new friend online through a message group. Paul, not his real name, invited Mike to his home where he lived alongside his parents. It was an ordinary house in a quiet cul de sac in a upscale suburb of a major US metropolis. They met to shoot some propaganda videos.
Paul entered the garage in his full Nazi uniform. He led Mike to his garage. Mike said, "It was like a clothing shop for Nazis." The walls were lined in weapons, including ammunition, cartridges, and many guns.
Paul had already gathered some young men to help him shoot. They loaded their guns and ammunition in a truck before driving out to the hills.
Mike says, "We were in a state park shooting semi-automatic or automatic weapons, filming, and running around wearing Nazi uniforms." Then, the park rangers arrived. Paul was furious.
He was just standing there, and he doesn't really want to hear any of it. He doesn't want to listen to the government telling him that he can't do what he believes he's entitled, which is to make videos and pretend to represent the Wehrmacht (the armed forces Nazi Germany).
All the guns that they could see were confiscated by the rangers, but the boys had hidden some and simply loaded them back into the truck when they were free. They then returned to Paul's home and spent the evening with his parents, still in their Nazi uniforms.
Mike, who was 17, claims he was the perfect vessel to toxic extremism.
His childhood was spent in a rural, white, small town. He spent his days kayaking and cycling around the town with his close-knit friends. Children and adults would meet up and have dinner parties or barbecues together. Everyone knew everyone at the place.
Mike's stepfather, an alcoholic who could lash back violently, was also a problem. Mike was 12 when his mother divorced him and moved the family to another area.
Mike found himself suddenly living in an urban, multi-racial neighbourhood. He hated it. "There were people there that didn't look like me, the food was new, the water was different, and everything was completely different."
They were also less financially secure now. Mike was close to his stepfather, but he never kept his promise to visit the children.
Mike was angry about all of this and found a way to express his anger through the alt-right.
Mike was encouraged by his father, a friend who listens to right-wing talk shows. He searched online for similar content and found videos and podcasts on YouTube and Facebook. The rabbit-hole effect, which social media algorithms already create, led Mike to more extreme content.
He was told that the Jewish conspiracy to end white families was divorcing. He says that it was easier for him to believe that his stepdad was a degenerate alcoholist, whatever the reason.
Mike eventually moved to the darkest corner of the internet, to white nationalist message boards at 4chan and 8. Mike says that these sites were like a social group for racists, Nazis, and white nationalists. People could exchange messages while getting to know each other. Paul was the first to meet him after he started exchanging messages in San Francisco with a group neo-Nazis.
Mike says, "I was just searching for a place where I could vent my anger." It found the perfect home.
Mike graduated from high school a year later. He said that he would go to the Navy instead if he couldn't get into the universities he wanted, but his mother opposed the idea. He decided to go to London's business school.
Mike was accustomed to seeing gentlemen and bowler hats in the UK. His image of London was reminiscent of a Victorian novel. Reality was quite different. His school was located in Whitechapel, a neighborhood with a vibrant Muslim community.
He says that he was an 18-year old radical white nationalist, fearful and deeply Islamophobic. His flat was located between the East London Mosque and the Royal London Hospital. "I didn't see diversity as a good thing. I saw it as an example for everything wrong in the world.
Mike fell deeper into white nationalism during his time in London. His activity was mostly online. He digitally stalked, harassed, and harassed left-wing celebrities in America for months along with a group of extremists. However, he did walk up to a mosque one day and drop a packet bacon on its doorstep.
After a few months, he stopped attending classes and received a letter from Home Office stating that his student visa was being revoked.
He was heading to a pub in Parliament Square one afternoon in April 2017. Passengers on the train were informed that Westminster station was closed due to a police operation. They had to exit at the station before.
The vehicle drove at 70 mph on the Westminster Bridge footpath and ran down pedestrians. Six people were killed, 50 injured, when the driver climbed onto the footpath at Westminster Bridge at 70 mph. Mike emerged from the Tube station to panicked scenes. He is still captivated by the sight of two children covered in foil blankets, which were handed out by emergency services.
IS was still a strong force in the Middle East at this point. It claimed it was responsible for the attack. This was one of many that it carried out in Europe during its most powerful period.
Mike tried to register for the military the following day. He was influenced by military men, and some of the white nationalists that he had spoken to online were also military men. He was refused entry to the RAF due to his nationality. However, he was soon back in California and enlisted with the USAF.
"I felt supercharged. It was clear in my mind that I wanted the opportunity to kill someone else.
He spent many hours in his garage, drinking and smoking chain-smoking cigarettes. It was a time of great rage.
He says, "I almost always had my gun with me." "And I was at the stage where if someone had told me to do it, I would have done that."
He could have been a Steven Carillo during that time, he now fears. However, there was another incident in 2020 when this feeling struck him with particular intensity.
Just a few months after the protests of Oakland, rioting broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A black man was killed in an encounter with police.
Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy joined a vigilante group to protect the city from "evil thugs", as an organizer called them. Three people were killed by Rittenhouse's AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He is currently being tried for intentional homicide as well as recklessly putting safety at risk.
Mike found it difficult to understand.
He says, "I look at that young teenage boy and I'm like: 'Wow! That was so close to being me.'"
The Pentagon issued a "standdown" order against extremism in February. This was an order to military leaders to combat extremism within their troops. Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, established a working group to identify "insider threats". He explained that potential recruits would now have to be screened for extremist affiliations.
These actions were made after initial analyses of the Capitol Hill riots, 6 January, suggested that a troubling proportion of those detained were former or acting servicemen and/or women. This included Ashli Babbitt (an Air Force veteran who was trying to break through a barricaded gate) who was fatally shot by a police officer.
An online poll by 2020 Military Times of 1,108 active duty readers found that only a third of respondents had witnessed signs of racism or white supremacist behavior within the military.
Apart from Steve Carillo, US Army Private Ethan Melzer was charged with preparing the ground to a deadly ambush against his unit by sending information a nazi group and three extremist veterans who were accused of carrying Molotov cocktails to toss at police during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Las Vegas.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Mike would choose the military as the beginning of his escape from far-right extremism.
He was stationed in the Missouri woods in late 2017 during the second month in his training.
He says, "I was just stuck there in the middle of nowhere, with all sorts of people aus all over the US, including black guys and Jewish guys. A guy from Guam taught me how to spearfish." "I made friends with people I wouldn't have thought of being friends with before.
He found military boot camp hard. It was exhausting and difficult to cope with the lack of autonomy, which meant that his superiors controlled his every move.
He says, "It's one to be a kid chain-smoking, reading 4chan, and getting riled up inside your garage." "To find yourself stuck in the middle of nowhere on an Air Force base you can't leave, with people screaming at you.
He was miserable and tried six times to leave basic training in just eight weeks. He thought that maybe his mother knew that he was in the military for wrong reasons.
Although letters were an important lifeline for recruits, Mike did not receive any in the first five weeks. Mike was the only trainee who had time to read his letters each week.
Another recruit, a black one, saw this. He said "Hey man," picking up a Bible. Let's pray together.
This was just one of many small acts that Mike did to help him get through basic training, and it ultimately helped change his outlook on life.
"Why aren't you helping me?" Mike thought. Mike thought.
In the following weeks, Mike would be supported by this young recruit and another young Jewish man. They would give Mike a pat on the back when Mike was struggling, or just a quiet "Hey man! You can do it!"
He was also taken out of the echo chamber, which had been supporting his racist beliefs during training. He was too busy to log on to the internet and hate was losing its grip on his life.
Mike knew that he did not want to serve in the military after he had completed basic training. He was depressed after spending several months at an Air Force base.
Just before his scheduled departure to Afghanistan, he reached his lowest point.
"I knew I was being deployed. "I was under a lot stress. There was just too much alcohol around one night. I also had access to a firearm.
He was close to suicide and was placed on unpaid medical leaves. He finds it difficult to talk about this episode.
Mike believes that although basic training was a key factor in his decision to leave extremism behind, it is not an accident that many of the most violent far-right acts in recent years were trained in military personnel.
He fears that extremists might join the military as he did to get an opportunity to kill other races.
He suggests that some people sign up for the training because they believe it will overthrow the government. A third group becomes disillusioned or radicalized as a result of their experiences in the ranks.
He says, "They feel taken advantaged, not understood, and lied to."
Mike saw a friend on social media supporting an anti-government militia organization. Mike refers to Afghanistan and Iraq, saying that he served 16-20 years in the military.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue published a report last month that examined the discussion of the military among far-right extremists via Telegram. While they found that a few extremists claimed to have been veterans, they also observed that most military discussions were negative. According to the report, this is due to the perception that US interventions abroad serve Israeli interests more than the white race.
Mike began to believe in America's wars, but he also accepted that his racism was futile.
He says, "I began to realize, around 70 years later than everyone else, that Hitler was clearly incorrect."
Mike began to think differently about race and he reached out to Christian Picciolini. He is a former neo Nazi who now uses his energy for deradicalisation.
Mike says that Mike told him to practice empathy, non-judgmentality, honesty, and self-reflection - basically to find a way for good to happen.
He began working in a music venue, and soon became obsessed with the punk rock scene. He needed an outlet for the anger he had gained from his unhappy childhood. Punk was his savior.
"My punk rock community was the most important thing in my escape. It is vital to have an outlet, and to feel part of a community. He says, "But a constructive group."
Mike was reclassified as Awol after his medical leave expired. To his surprise, he was discharged honorably last December.
He worries that extremism may still hold him captive. Mike was at work when he witnessed two young black men rob a deli. The older woman was also assaulted. Mike tried to stop the attackers but they pulled out a gun. Mike recognized the same dehumanizing, racist ideas that were crowding his thoughts later in the night, but he continued to fight against them.
"I have made constant efforts to be antiracist, to actively be antiracist. It is hard work, and I don’t want to pretend it isn’t.
He saw Americans falling deeper into the extremist trap as he struggled to get out of it. Oakland and Kenosha were not the only places where Black Lives Matters demonstrators were hurt. Mike was also horrified at the attack on Capitol Hill.
He says that the US is an "union of warring clans" loosely bound. It can become extremely dangerous if you drop a match on it. "I've seen a lot of violence."
Mike wants Americans to see how easy it is for extremist ideologies to overtake someone's life in America today.
He says that he was a teenager who had basic internet access in California and became radicalized enough to desire to commit acts against people based on their skin colour or religion.
"The most important thing I want people know about me is that I was a Nazi. "Not in 1939 Bavaria, but in modern-day America."
Mike is a pseudonym
It took Christian Picciolini years to escape the neo Nazi movement after just one conversation. He spent nearly a quarter of a century convincing hundreds of people to give up on extremism in order to make amends.
Christian Picciolini: A Neo-Nazi who turned into an Anti-Nazi
