Thread by @FordFischer

I spent a weekend with the "III% Security Force," which is one of the biggest private militia groups in America. I got a rare look into their training exercises.

A lot of academics write about these folks, but I think raw video like this is rare. (Part 1)

Before I go into tweeting clips to supplement the videos I'm releasing on Youtube, I want to point out that Vice has covered the founding chapter of the same group. Their version is filled with music/effects, mine is raw video.

Theirs is monetized on YT.

Their first drill was a quick-draw against a nearby target. The hypothetical situation they were training for is if one of them was open carrying and faced a close-up enemy. The goal was to draw, and do "two to the chest, one to the head."

Each person was supposed to have a mag with three rounds for the exercise. It went smoothly except for one person who blasted off four rounds and had a full mag behind it, and briefly flagged his own hand.

Their "CO" sent him to the medical class and didn't want him shooting.

Their second exercise was firing shots from 3 locations at a few targets and running through the brush in between.

I also spoke on the first day to Tammy Hugate, who showed me the group's medical kit. She's one of the two nurses on site.

She was actually one of the militia folks in Charlottesville, and performed first aid on @sandibachom (a journalist who fell and cracked her head) on A12.

They celebrated the conclusion of their first training day by firing "Dragon's breath" incendiary rounds into a paper target doused in gas.

When it caught fire, the guy who shot it asked "Should I let antifa burn a little longer?" before putting it out with a fire extinguisher.

"Guide those who do not believe like we believe."

The night concluded with a fire-side prayer, before a chanting of "gun's up!" which is the group's motto and rallying cry.

Their second day focused on a hypothetical guerrilla engagement.

It began with a fake trip wire and applying a tourniquet to a member who had theoretically blown her leg off.

Full day 2, part 1 video:

Here's the remainder of that exercise. If an exposed target wasn't shot by the members quickly, their CO would declare the point-man "down."

They did get all the targets but theoretically lost one person along the way.

While the targets were fake, the bullets they used are real

A thing that surprised me was the group's use of social media to recruit. While they had less than a hundred physical attendees, one "CO" livestreamed calling the group a "family" into a Facebook group of thousands.

Yes, I said "mine's bigger" when he pointed his camera at mine.

On their second group goin g through the live-fire guerrilla training exercise, the hypothetical enemy of the militia turned into "looters."

"They need to be found and eliminated," said their "CO."

One guy's gun jammed, and he finished the course with his handgun.

After the exercise, I dug in a bit on who their enemy is. They specifically clarified that they're not prepping to fight "antifa or Black Lives Matter."

Another specifically said he opposes racism, and when he was in the Marines, everyone was "green" to him.

A guy who came onto the grounds to sell holsters ended up wanting to join, and I got to sit in on their interview process. Here's a couple clips from that (it was about a half hour) as they accepted him.

The interviewer was Chris Hill, the organization's founder and "General."

I spoke to Chris Hill, the organization's "General" that evening.

I've often heard that the FBI - not to mention political rivals - love infiltrating these groups. When I asked him how he prevents that, here's what he had to say.

The group finished their day by blasting tannerite explosives in unison. It was too dark to see the tannerite (it doesn't flash when it explodes) so I took more like a profile shot of them all shooting.

Full video:

One thing that surprised me about filming at the III% training camp was that kids were in attendance. While holding another member's baby, one told me about the presence of kids and how they see themselves as "teaching the right values."

"Captain Hitman" of the Texas Chapter promoted his daughter (callsign Pterodactyl) from "Private" to "Private First Class" on the morning of the third day. Both became emotional, and I interviewed both afterwards.

Full vid:

On the third day, new members got to try the guerrilla exercise. The guy who set it up was mostly concerned about their muzzle discipline, and demoed for them how to walk and track a target without flagging other people.

When it took too long for them to hit targets, he called their point person "down." In the end, this group failed, all "downed" before finding targets.

His advice afterwards was that they need to look in the woods for hidden targets, because a real enemy wouldn't stand in front.

The group's last exercise was in CQC (close quarters combat.) This is what that looked like.

The guy training them is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu teacher outside his militia work.

The CQC training concluded like this, focusing on choking people out as well as proper stances in a fight.

Their teacher finished off with a speech about how most people are not warriors, but their group could entirely be. He suggests they read "Art of War."

The Ohio "Major" adds in that the attendees need to be practicing more thoroughly when they're at home.

This was my final interview of the weekend, with the leaders of the Ohio chapter who put on the event for more than a dozen militia state chapters. I dug a little further into the basic question: "Who are you training to fight?" Here's what they said.

That's a wrap folks! I want to emphasize that this thread is a deep dive into the militia movement in the US, but documentary footage isn't a documentary.

The work doesn't end here.

All vid available for license; I look forward to seeing others use it.

youtube.com/playlist?list=…