 | |||
| Time to step up and get it done. |
Recruiting stations across the nation continue to receive terrorist threats, and since the Obama Administration and the DOD still refuse to change the insane policy of ordering our troops to go unarmed in recruiting stations and Reserve centers, those troops are still at great risk. So, it up to us veterans and dedicated patriots (whether veterans or not) to step in the gap and “Protect the Protectors.”
Many of our chapters and members are already guarding recruiting stations nation-wide. In fact, on the day of the shooting, within hours of the attack, our Tennessee chapter was guarding several recruiting stations in that state (and are still doing so). The next day, on Friday, July 17, 2015, the Arkansas Oath Keepers chapter, lead by their state President, Special Forces veteran Rick Moon, launched their “Operation Protect the Protectors” in Arkansas, guarding numerous recruiting stations throughout that state. On Sunday night I held a call with our state leaders and encouraged them to do likewise.
And so, we are formally taking Operation Protect the Protectors nationwide. All chapters are expected to participate. If you are an Oath Keepers chapter leader (local or state), or CPT leader, you are expected to implement this operation as part of your duties. All members are encouraged to participate or assist in any way they can (it is, of course, not mandatory for members, but they are strongly encouraged to take part. It IS mandatory for leaders though).
 | |||||||||||||
| United We Stand |
Coordinate with the established state and local chapter leaders, if you have such in your area. If you don’t already have direct contact to your local or state Oath Keepers leadership, use Facebook to reach them, or send an email to us at national, using our “Contact” form and we will put you in touch with them.
If you don’t have an established chapter in your area, then organize a team yourself, in your local community. Contact us here at national for help with that.
Other patriots, whether Oath Keepers members or not, are also encouraged to step up and protect our recruiters. If you are the leader of another group who would like to work with your local Oath Keepers chapter on this, please contact them, using Facebook or by emailing us at national.
We need you to do the following:
A. Reach out to local military recruiters (and Reserve/National Guard), schools, malls, and police
- Send an outreach team to your local Recruitment and Reserve Centers, and visit High School Principals and Mall Security offices to:
- Let them know what we are doing and that we are Oath Keepers
- Tell them they need to add security for malls and schools; that OK can help, if they wish.
- Tell them that we will be coordinating with local police stations for added support at or near recruitment centers, and that we hope to work with the police on assisting with protection malls and schools as well. They are at serious risk of being overwhelmed by a coordinated attack by terrorist teams on multiple soft targets. We can help.
- To recruitment centers: that we are there to deter attacks on their site and their persons.
- Also reach out to National Guard in your area to offer assistance and coordination in case they are attacked (their personnel are under similar idiotic restrictions on being armed).
B. Form teams:
- Volunteers (minimum 2 per recruitment center) on duty at each designated site with its own duty roster. Best to have additional covert team to back them up.
- Need state leaders to draft email to all members in their state asking for volunteers and then organizing and coordinating them while maintaining OPSEC. This can also be done via Facebook but again, think OPSEC.
- Uniform: OK cap or shirt (or other way to ID team, such as arm-band), body armor suggested, and weapon(s). See below for guidelines on weapons.
- Duty: preferably 4 hour shifts per day; 8 hours if insufficient volunteers.
- Coordinating instructions: sufficient ammo (min of 4 mags per AR, for example) to suppress an attack, Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK), phone, camera, camel back, cooler with drinks/snacks/lunch (stay hydrated!).
- A courteous and professional disposition to all except Islamic jihadists.
Additional Preliminary Guidelines:
- Work in at least teams of two. If at all possible, avoid having a single Oath Keeper standing guard. The more the better.
- All those actually standing guard should be armed. That is the whole point – to be armed to defend the recruiters who are under threat of UCMJ prosecution and discipline if they dare to go armed. An unarmed guard is just a bullet catcher and another victim.
- Be sure that those on the armed teams belong there. Are they cool, collected, trained, experienced, competent and safe with their firearms? Do they have the right training and/or experience to be on an armed team that may end up in a close range fire-fight with a suicidal terrorist with an AK? If not, then they don’t belong there. Remember, there may well be a parking lot full of innocent bystanders there when an attack is launched, and your team needs to be competent and calm enough under pressure to minimize the risk to those bystanders while stopping the threat. We are looking for the quiet professionals.
- If someone is not suitably trained or willing to serve on the armed detail, they can still serve in some support capacity. Work that out among your chapters and CPTs. Support is critical, as you will find out. That is the whole point of the “B” or support team on a CPT. This is a good time to get that organized.
- The security teams can be openly armed, or covertly armed, at your discretion, and depending on your local situation. You know your own AO best so you need to assess and make that decision. An overt presence, where possible, does help to deter attack (though don’t count on it). If you have good enough relations with your community and local police that you choose to make an overt presence, we strongly recommend that you also have a covert element on scene as well, to back up that overt team. If attackers decide to move on a recruiting station guarded by an overt team, they will target that team first, so having a covert team to back them up will be essential to spoiling the attack.
- Teams need to be close enough, and ready enough, to respond instantly and stop an attack at the very outset. The longer it takes a team to respond, the more victims there will be. Use your discretion on how to make that happen.
- Use your own best judgment on whether to use hand-guns or long guns, or both. As for me, I would bring a rifle to what is likely to bee a rifle fight if a terrorist attacks, along with my pistol. Again, depending on your environment, you can choose to have long guns visible, or not, and, likewise for handguns. But always have a covert reserve of some kind, regardless. Consider the utility of shotguns or frangible pistol and rifle rounds to minimize danger to bystanders. But have the ability to also shoot through obstacles, if needed.
- Body armor is highly recommended, and since you are likely to face a terrorist armed with a rifle, rifle plates (steel or ceramic level III or above) are highly recommended if at all possible (Come And Take It! Armor has graciously offered all Oath Keepers who are serving on these security teams a 25% discount. We will give the discount code to our leadership teams).
- Be sure you notify the recruiters of your presence, so they know they are being protected, and so they don’t inadvertently mistake your security team for a threat. Also, if for any reason you are unable to provide protection for any period of time during their business hours, be sure to notify them so they can make other arrangements and so they at least understand their exposure.
- It is best that you also notify the local police and coordinate with them, if possible. That will depend on whether you have friendly local police or not. Some of our chapters that have already been standing guard have excellent relationships with local police and have coordinated directly, including letting the police know exactly who will be on guard, when, where, and what they are wearing. Other chapters are in locales where the local police are not supportive and they are unfortunately not able to coordinate like that. The more coordination you can do, the better, to avoid being mistaken for a threat, and to avoid a blue-on-blue tragedy. But protecting the recruiters comes first. So, if the local police are not supportive, or even hostile, deal with it and work around it to be sure the recruiters are protected (but be sure to at least notify the recruiters that you are out there).
- Teams should notify the police if they spot suspicious activity that is not an immediate attack, such as is consistent with someone casing out a recruiting station or other actions consistent with preparation for a future attack. let the police handle such situations, and just spot and report.
- However, if an attack occurs, of course you must stop it immediately yourself, while minimizing the risk to bystanders as you do so. Once an attack is launched, every second is critical and the longer the threat is up and running, the more casualties possible.
- We will provide some more guidance and some ROEs on our members forum, or your team leaders will do so when you form up your teams. Be careful to not put your SOPs, TTPs, or ROEs on the web, such as on Facebook or elsewhere on the open web. And even be careful about putting too much detail on our member forums, which are also really not secure enough.
- Avoid publishing too much details on which recruitment centers are being guarded, and when. When contacted by media, you may want to give them one or two examples where an overt team is present that they can interview, but make sure they know those are only examples, and that other stations are being guarded as well, and they may be guarded by covert teams. Do not give complete lists of stations being protected, or of total head count of personnel doing the protecting. Keep that unknown to all except those directly involved and also the recruiters and friendly local police.
- Work to coordinate wherever possible with local police to avoid a blue-on-blue incident.
- Be sure to get the consent of your team members before any media is allowed to photograph them, and be sure to have that covert reserve that the media never even knows is there (and cannot photograph).
- You need to make contact with the administrators and security staff of your area schools and shopping malls also. Help them to conduct a threat assessment, and offer you help and assistance in protecting them.
As said above, we will do this until the DOD changes its idiotic
policy of insisting that recruiters go unarmed, while they are in
uniform, in a clearly marked public office, open and accessible to
anyone who wants to walk or drive up.
They may as well order the service-members to walk unarmed, but in uniform, down the streets of Baghdad. The exposure is the same because any jihadist can simply look in the local phone book and find unarmed military service members to attack. In fact, it may be worse to be unarmed in a recruiting or Reserve station in the US, since they are sitting ducks, in a stationary position, throughout their shift. If they were walking down the streets of Baghdad, at least they would be moving. This policy makes them sitting ducks, and unarmed sacrificial lambs, on the alter of anti-gun political correctness.
The DOD policy, which Obama has not corrected, even after this horrific terrorist attack, is an indication of the anti-gun insanity that has taken over in government circles in this country in recent decades. It started under Bush the elder, back in 1993, and has been continued through all Administrations thereafter, of both parties. It is foolish, irresponsible, and insane, and needs to be changed. American police are not required to go unarmed as they do there work, and neither should American military personnel, and especially those who are ordered to work out among the public.
They are being forced, against their will, under orders, to go unarmed and they are at risk of prosecution and disciplinary action under the UCMJ if they dare to attempt to arm themselves against terrorist attack. So long as they are under that false choice, we will defend them. Thankfully, we veterans are no longer under the UCMJ and can tell the DOD and Obama to pound sand and they can’t do a damn thing about it. So, we the veterans will go armed and we will protect our brothers and sisters in uniform until that evil policy is changed. – Time to step up. As a SC Police Chief put it:
They may as well order the service-members to walk unarmed, but in uniform, down the streets of Baghdad. The exposure is the same because any jihadist can simply look in the local phone book and find unarmed military service members to attack. In fact, it may be worse to be unarmed in a recruiting or Reserve station in the US, since they are sitting ducks, in a stationary position, throughout their shift. If they were walking down the streets of Baghdad, at least they would be moving. This policy makes them sitting ducks, and unarmed sacrificial lambs, on the alter of anti-gun political correctness.
The DOD policy, which Obama has not corrected, even after this horrific terrorist attack, is an indication of the anti-gun insanity that has taken over in government circles in this country in recent decades. It started under Bush the elder, back in 1993, and has been continued through all Administrations thereafter, of both parties. It is foolish, irresponsible, and insane, and needs to be changed. American police are not required to go unarmed as they do there work, and neither should American military personnel, and especially those who are ordered to work out among the public.
They are being forced, against their will, under orders, to go unarmed and they are at risk of prosecution and disciplinary action under the UCMJ if they dare to attempt to arm themselves against terrorist attack. So long as they are under that false choice, we will defend them. Thankfully, we veterans are no longer under the UCMJ and can tell the DOD and Obama to pound sand and they can’t do a damn thing about it. So, we the veterans will go armed and we will protect our brothers and sisters in uniform until that evil policy is changed. – Time to step up. As a SC Police Chief put it:
“We are not going to wait for the U.S. President to issue a directive for our U.S. Military recruiting stations to be able to arm themselves as self-defense. We have our local military recruiting office on extra patrol and a group of law abiding citizens, who just so happen to be former U.S. Military and pro-constitution advocates, that have vowed to stand guard to protect these offices. As long as the office is open for business these men are on watch duty!
This …is not vigilante justice! These men are law abiding CWP holders and former U.S. Military who will call 911 and allow us to do our job if they see something suspicious. But, they will also not hesitate to act if a terrorist with a gun approaches the recruiting office shooting. I would like to thank the Oathkeepers for stepping up to assist us and ensure that our U.S. Military are safe! As police officers we cannot be there every minute, so we appreciate these extra sets of eyes and ears that will notify us if anything is out of the ordinary.”
Keith Grounsell
Chief of Police
 |
| Talk About a Team Effort! Veterans, Current Serving Military, and a Constitutional, Stand-up Chief of Police in SC. |
And when it comes to our schools, we need
to confront and deal with the reality that each and every school in
America is a very soft target, full of unarmed teachers, and children
who are being intentionally left undefended by the domestic enemies of
the Constitution who control our federal government. all of those
children are at even greater risk than the recruiters. If a lone
jihadist can kill four Marines and a Sailor, imagine what they could do
to class-rooms full of undefended or poorly defended children. Imagine
what a terrorist team could do. See the recently released novel, Day of Rage
for a graphic example of what that would be like. We need to step up
there to, and make sure they are protected and to make it clear who has
their back and who doesn’t.
Stewart Rhodes
Founder and National President of Oath Keepers
PS – any questions, post below in the comments and I will do my best to answer them, so long as they don’t violate OPSEC. Or email us.
For those who may somehow think this is “off mission” for Oath Keepers, let me remind you of your oath, which was to DEFEND the Constitution, and of the FACT that our mission statement in our bylaws is simply to “Defend the Constitution,” which is fully consistent with that oath. You don’t defend the Constitution by merely encouraging others to defend it. Sometimes, you have to step up and stand in the breach yourself. This is one of those times. By defending these recruiters, who are disarmed by an evil and unlawful policy, we have a superb chance to teach both them and the public about the necessity of an armed population and the wisdom of our Founding fathers (talk about awesome “RTI”), and we also have a chance to defend our Constitution directly against enemies, both foreign and domestic. It is hard to imagine a more righteous cause. And that goes double for doing the same at our schools, if we can coordinate that. It may be we are unable to directly coordinate with school admin or local police, because of a negative political environment, but we can at least form up veterans and patriots into local QRFs to respond at a moment’s notice – we need to be modern minutemen.
If we don’t do this, we will leave the field to the domestic enemies of the Constitution who can’t wait to dance in the blood of more unarmed victims and use that as a rationale for further destruction of our Constitution. They will never let an emergency go to waste, and it won’t just be the right to bear arms that they further destroy. It will also be the rest of the Bill of Rights. We already see traitorous retired generals like Wesley Clark joining with equally traitorous politicians to call for “interning” disloyal Americans after this attack. Remember, whatever illegitimate powers they claim or advocate in response to jihadist attack will not just be used on U.S. Muslims. They will eventually also be used against you, the patriots, veterans, and Christians. Count on it. You know that the domestic enemies of our Constitution are not really much interested in fighting or stopping jihadists. Their actions make that abundantly clear. But they sure are interested in you, and in preparing to fight and kill you, because you are the real threat to their agenda. Always keep that in mind, and let’s screw up their plans by acting as the Founders intended a free people to act – let us become the security of a free state – the militia of the people – again. God bless our Republic.
About Author
