How Four US Marines Formed a Terror Group to Take Down Democracy

November 29th, 2020 - by David Neiwert / Daily Kos Staff

Atomwaffen members pose with nuclear flag and Nazi salutes.

Gang of Young Marines Moved to Idaho to Create Nazi ‘Death Squad,’ Plot Attacks

David Neiwert / Daily Kos Staff

 (November 23, 2020) — Three Marine Corps veterans and their porn-actor neo-Nazi guru were arrested last month on charges that they engaged in an interstate gun-running scheme, comprised of a band of violent fascists who had recently moved to Idaho with the intent of making it a base of operations for their plans to engage in acts of domestic terrorism, federal prosecutors revealed this week.

According to the grand-jury indictment filed this week by prosecutors in North Carolina, the men’s schemes went well beyond those with which they have been charged — namely, buying semiautomatic rifles, altering them into automatics, then shipping them from Idaho to North Carolina. The foursome not only engaged in paramilitary training in the Idaho desert, they surveilled two separate Black Lives Matters marches in Boise this summer and discussed killing participants. They also plotted to assassinate BLM founder Alicia Garza.

Three of the four men — Justin Hermanson, 21, who used the code name “Sandman”; Liam Collins, 21, aka “Disciple”; and Jordan Duncan, 25, aka “Soldier” — had met while serving in the US Marine Corps. The fourth — Paul Kryscuk, 35, whose nom de plume was “Deacon” — was a porn actor (under the stage name “Pauly Harker”) who had lived most of his life on Long Island, New York. He met the other men online in the now-defunct neo-Nazi message board Iron March, and was the group’s general leader, though all they identified as members of the terrorist organization Atomwaffen Division. [“Atomwaffen” translates as “Nuclear weapons.” — EAW]

Back in 2017, when Iron March was still active, the men had discussed among themselves how to create “a modern day SS,” as one of them put it, referencing the Nazi paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel [“Protection Squad”], the indictment says. Kryscuk outlined the group’s long-range plan then:

  • “First order of business is knocking down The System, mounting it and smashing it’s face until it has been beaten past the point of death … eventually we will have to bring the rifles out and go to work.”
  • “Second order of business … is the seizing of territory and the Balkanization of North America. Buying property in remote areas that are already predominantly white and right leaning, networking with locals, training, farming, and stockpiling.”
  • “Start buying property now in the types of regions mentioned above and get to work on building your own group. …As time goes on in this conflict, we will expand our territories and slowly take back the land that is rightfully ours. … As we build our forces and our numbers, we will move into the urban areas and clear them out. This will be a ground war very reminiscent of Iraq as we will essentially be facing an insurgent force made up of criminals and gang members.”

Atomwaffen celebrates a member alleged to have murdered a gay Jewish college student.

Kryscuk bought a home in the Boise area in February 2020 and moved there, and Duncan and Collins gradually followed suit. Hermanson — who was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and remains an active member of the Marine Corps — joined them in July for a training exercise in the Idaho desert. The participants compiled a video of the live footage from that training, showing Kryscuk and another person firing a variety of rifles. At the end, the four men — all outfitted in Atomwaffen masks — are seen giving the Nazi salute beneath a Sonnenrad, an occult Nazi symbol. The final frame reads: “Come home white man.”

Prosecutors say the purpose of the gun-running scheme was “to regularly and repetitively manufacture and transport firearms and firearm parts, to include suppressors, in a manner that the government would not know the recipients had them, for criminal purposes” — namely “in furtherance of a civil disorder.”

The “civil disorder” included attacking the Black Lives Matter movement, including its leadership. Garza reported in a tweetlast week that the FBI had informed her that her name had appeared on a list of targets found in one of the men’s homes in Boise.

“This is why this President is so dangerous,” she added. “He is stoking fires he has no intention of controlling. I’m ok y’all, but this shit is not ok.”


Still from an Atomwaffen training video.

The neo-Nazi gang had twice conducted surveillance on BLM events in Boise: First, on July 21, at a rally on the campus of Boise State University, Kryscuk was observed within visual range of the event, first sitting in a parked vehicle and driving around the gathering slowly.

Then, on August 18, Kryscuk was observed lurking in the vicinity of a BLM rally/protest at a park in downtown Boise.

Kryscuk and Duncan just last month discussed in a text chat how things would go down after their group — which they called “the BSN” (a prosecutors office spokesman declined to explain the meaning of the acronym) — attacked BLM marchers as they envisioned:

“How the BSNs finna be pulling up to chipotle after hitting legs,” Duncan asked.

“Death squad,” Kryscuk answered, adding: “Assassins creed hoodies and suppressed 22 pistols.”

“People freaking tf out,” Duncan replied.

“About what,” Kryscuk asked.

“‘The end of democracy’,” Duncan wrote.

“One can hope,” Kryscuk answered.

Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes