Patriot Games

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

In a remote meadow in northern Michigan, inside a large tent heated by a wood stove, 50 white men dressed in combat gear and wielding rifles talk about the insanity of the outside world. The men, civilians all, see threats everywhere. There are reports of foreign soldiers hiding in salt mines under Detroit, some of the men say. Others speak of secret markings on highway signs meant to guide conquering armies. The men's voices subside as "General" Norman Olson, a Baptist minister, gun-shop owner and militia leader, enters the tent. He tells the men they are the shock troops of a movement that's sweeping America, that the "end times" are coming, and civil wars are two years away. "People think we are the ones who bring fear because we have guns," Olson says. "But we are really an expression of fear."

In dozens of states, loosely organized paramilitary groups composed primarily of white men are signing up new members, stockpiling weapons and preparing for the worst. The groups, all privately run, tend to classify themselves as "citizen militias." They are the armed, militarized edge of a broader group of disgruntled citizenry that go by the label of "patriots." The members of the larger patriot movement are usually family men and women who feel strangled by the economy, abandoned by the government and have a distrust for those in power that goes well beyond that of the typical angry voter. Patriots join the militias out of fear and frustration. Says Jim Barnett, leader of a Florida militia: "The low-life scum that are supposedly representing us in Washington, D.C., don't care about the people back home anymore. We're grasping at straws here trying to figure out what we can do to get representation, and this is our answer."

Patriots claim to be motivated differently from other fringe groups that have sprung up in America and taken up arms. The Ku Klux Klan, for example -- born as a social club and quickly evolving into a militia, recruiting members through appeals to patriotism -- still thrives on hatred of blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics and foreigners. The moribund Posse Comitatus, a militant group based in the Farm Belt, wanted to wipe out the tax collectors. The patriots, by contrast, have a more generalized fear of Big Government, which they say is rapidly robbing individuals of their inalienable rights, chief among them the right to bear arms. Patriots were particularly enraged when Congress passed a crime bill last August that banned assault weapons. Complains Henry McClain, the leader of another Florida militia unit: "The Federal Government has taken it upon themselves to regulate everything you can think or touch or smell."

Patriots also fear that foreign powers, working through organizations like the United Nations and treaties like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, are eroding the power of America as a sovereign nation. On a home video promoting patriot ideas, a man who gives his name only as Mark from Michigan says he fears that America will be subsumed into "one big, fuzzy, warm planet where nobody has any borders." Samuel Sherwood, head of the United States Militia Association in Blackfoot, Idaho, tells followers, absurdly, that the Clinton Administration is planning to import 100,000 Chinese policemen to take guns away from Americans.

Such wild allegations have proved to be an effective method of grabbing the attention of the disaffected and recruiting them into militias. Most experts agree that the groups are multiplying and their membership is expanding, though estimates vary. Chip Berlet, who studies militias for Political Research Associates, a Massachusetts think tank, says militia units exist in 30 states, including large organizations in Michigan, Montana and Ohio, and he suspects there may be units in 10 other states. Although there may be hundreds of thousands of people who identify with the patriot movement, Berlet estimates that only about 10,000 people have actually joined the armed militias.

On their wilderness training excursions, these would-be warriors give themselves a vigorous workout. In Michigan the members of a local militia build their endurance by running army-style outdoor obstacle courses or tramping long distances across rugged terrain while holding heavy semiautomatic rifles. John Schlosser, coordinator of Colorado's Free Militia (claimed membership: 3,000), admits that his group's doomsday preparations sometimes amount to no more than "playing games in the woods." Militia members, sometimes with their families in tow, play hide-and-seek and capture the flag, all to build conditioning in case of an armed conflict.

When it comes to organization, however, the troops go high-tech. The militia movement, says Berlet, "is probably the first national movement organized and directed on the information highway." Patriot talk shows, such as The Informed Citizen, a half-hour program broadcast on public-access TV in Northern California, spread the word that American values are under attack from within and without. Militias also communicate via the Patriot Network, a system of linked computer bulletin boards, and through postings in news groups on the Internet. One recent posting by a group calling itself the Pennsylvania Militia, more specifically the F Company of the 9th Regiment, asked for "a few good men" to join up and "stand up to the forces of federal and world tyranny."

The patriot movement was galvanized by two events: the bloody face-off in rural Idaho between white separatist Randy Weaver and law-enforcement officials in 1992 and the fiery siege of the Waco, Texas, compound of cult leader David Koresh in 1993. The violent confrontations helped convince many would-be militia members that the U.S. government was repressive as well as violently antigun and untrustworthy. "The Waco thing really woke me up," says Frank Swan, 36, a trucker who is a member of a militia in Montana. "They went in there and killed women and children."

Critics of the militias say the genuine concern on the part of patriots for second-amendment rights could, in many cases, turn into something more menacing. In October the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith issued a report titled Armed & Dangerous, which charged that militias were "laying the groundwork for massive resistance to the Federal Government and its law- enforcement agencies."

But most militia groups claim to be nonracial, nonpolitical outfits ( interested only in preserving the Constitution and core American values. Dean Compton, a real estate agent and California militia member, says members aren't consumed by ideology: "I still play with my kids. I still go to the movies. It's not all gloom and doom." Compton also says neo-Nazis and white supremacists were purged from his militia, and they're not welcome back: "If they're crazies, we don't want 'em."

But analyst Mike Reynolds of the Southern Poverty Law Center says some of the people emerging as militia leaders have ties with hate-mongering groups. "They are being very canny about it," says Reynolds. "They aren't going around lighting torches and burning crosses at these meetings. They are using code words. Instead of talking about the Zionist occupation, they talk about the new world order. It's the same old stuff dressed up for the '90s."

Militia recruiters have no shortage of fears to play on. Recently, members of the Militia of Michigan stopped by the Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting room in the town of L'Anse to scout for new members. The local timber and mining industries are fading, and an area Air Force base is set to close next year. Residents, looking in vain for new solutions to old problems, were good targets for the militia message. Said logger and school board member Sonny Thoren: "I can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans anymore."

The patriots, to him, seemed to offer a clear alternative. They had bold ideas and big guns. After the meeting, Thoren and four others stood next to a flag in the corner of the room, underneath a gun case filled with vintage M-1 rifles, and took the oath to join the militia. A new brigade was born.

With reporting by Ed Barnes/L''Anse, Patrick Dawson/Kalispell, David S. Jackson/Shingletown, Scott Norvell/Pensacola and Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles