Advocates Worry About Uncommon, But Growing Radicalization Among Veterans

Chris Buckley was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, addicted to hatred after his deployment with the Kentucky National Guard to Afghanistan. There, he saw his best friend killed.

“Daniel died in my arms while I was trying to push his brain back into his skull,” he told lawmakers Thursday at a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on extremism.

After his traumatizing experience in Afghanistan, and his own injuries, he was led down a dark road laced with drug addiction and a hatred for Muslims. He had suicidal thoughts, even reaching out for help from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but received little more than pills.

“I would still have been a KKK member had it not been for the intervention of my wife,” he said. “My 4-year-old son had started asking for his own KKK outfit. And my wife had just had enough. She suffered as I suffered, and I was about to pass my sufferings to my young innocent son, too. She gave me an ultimatum: it was going to be either her and my son or KKK and the drugs.”

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/03/31/advocates-worry-about-uncommon-growing-radicalization-among-veterans.html