The U.S. Army is conducting a formal review of a reservist who conducted a “white nationalist” paramilitary training in North Carolina earlier this year and has boasted of Ku Klux Klan ties.
Christopher Woodall, a 34-year-old member of the U.S. Army’s Individual Ready Reserve, has a long history of involvement in the KKK and other white supremacist groups.
Woodall recruited “like-minded folks” to attend paramilitary-style trainings to learn about firearms, tactical movement and survivalism in preparation for “SHTF,” an acronym that references a widespread societal breakdown.
Woodall’s white supremacist activity, as well as his support for Russia, were first reported by Raw Story in August.
“The Army takes all allegations of extremism seriously,” Heather J. Hagan, an Army spokesperson, told Raw Story in an email.
Hagan said the information uncovered by Raw Story about Woodall has been referred to Army’s human resources command, which manages the Individual Ready Reserve.
Hagan declined to comment further on what action the Army might take as a result of the review.
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Woodall’s activities were documented in internal social media chats reviewed by Raw Story and subsequently confirmed by Woodall himself.
Raw Story’s investigation uncovered a specific chat on the messaging app Telegram in which Woodall bragged about “running a state for the KKK,” and referenced past involvement with the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement.
The chat initially served as a communications hub for a chapter of the far-right group American Guard. At least one member of the chapter held a dual membership with the Proud Boys.
Woodall used the acronym “WPWW,” which stands for “white pride worldwide,” in his TikTok bio, and made a post with the inscription “RaHoWa,” short for “racial holy war.” (He told Raw Story his use of the phrase was “satire.”)
The paramilitary group for which Woodall recruited conducted at least one training outside of Reidsville, N.C., a small city near the Virginia state line, in January 2023, during a period when Woodall was serving in the North Carolina Army National Guard.
When Woodall separated from the National Guard in April, he went into the Individual Ready Reserve, the North Carolina National Guard told Raw Story.
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Members of the Individual Ready Reserve may be mobilized during times of national crisis to replace soldiers in active-duty or other reserve units. This was the case during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and, more recently, when then-President Donald Trump activated members to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After Woodall’s interest in his white nationalist training group appeared to flag midway through this year, he joined a Telegram chat for a neo-Nazi group in western North Carolina that claims to be dedicated to “forging strong men worthy of our nation” while announcing that “the harvest season is here.” The group’s founding statement is explicitly framed around antisemitic hate, fulminating against “the destruction wrought upon our culture, our nation, and our soil by these wicked Jews who have scorched the earth we walk upon.”
Woodall inquired about joining the neo-Nazi group when it was founded in July.
“Get vetted,” one of the administrators for the Telegram channel advised Woodall. “Then show up and get beat up and that’s it.”
The administrator added that they would probably vet Woodall in a couple days through a private online chat. It is unclear whether that actually happened.
‘Extremist activities’
Under Department of Defense Instruction 1325.06, a Pentagon policy for “Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces,” military personnel are prohibited from “actively participating in extremist activities.”
Under the policy, “extremist activities” includes “advocating or engaging in unlawful force or violence to achieve goals that are political, religious, discriminatory, or ideological in nature” and “advocating widespread unlawful discrimination based on race, color, national origin religion, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, or sexual orientation.”
The Department of Defense defines “active participation,” among other things, as “advocating or engaging in the use or threat of unlawful force or violence in support of extremist activities,” “recruiting or training others to engage in extremist activities,” and “creating, organizing, or taking a leadership role in a group or organization that engages in or advocates for extremist activities, with knowledge of those activities.”
The policy cites three reasons for prohibiting extremist activity among military personnel.
“First, such active participation undermines morale and reduces combat readiness,” the policy reads. “Second, it calls into question the individual’s ability to follow orders from, or effectively lead with, persons of diverse backgrounds, preventing maximum utilization and development of the department’s most valuable asset: its people. Finally, such behavior damages the nation’s trust and confidence in the department as an institution and the military as a professional fighting force.”
Woodall could not be reached for comment for this story, but in March 2023, he told members of his Telegram chat that he objects to the military’s commitment to gender inclusion.
“I joined to be a heroic defender I saw myself as and test my manhood in combat,” he wrote. Woodall added: “Not to say it wasn’t a challenge to make it in, or that there weren’t some good times that I’ll miss, but the overshadowing bureaucracy, favoritism, woke feminism, gender neutrality, and just general soft nature of it all is unbearable by now.”
Woodall has used his social media to make statements in support of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine, both while serving as a member of the National Guard and continuing as a reservist.
Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Raw Story that Woodall’s case appears to be fairly straightforward.
“Clearly, Woodall should be separated from the military’s Individual Ready Reserve,” she said. “He’s a white nationalist and exactly the kind of person who should be ousted from the armed services under their rules about extremist behavior. Having people like Woodall in any capacity related to the armed services is a danger to the American people.”
Delayed military response
Initially, when Raw Story inquired in early August about whether the revelations about Woodall’s white supremacist activities would prompt an official investigation, a spokesperson indicated that the information would be reported to the proper authorities in the North Carolina National Guard.
During the same time period, the Army referred an inquiry from Raw Story to the National Guard.
Then, after nearly a month of emails and phone calls, the North Carolina National Guard told Raw Story that officials had determined that the Guard “does not hold any administrative control or oversight for service members” in Woodall’s status.
The U.S. military has long struggled with extremism in the ranks.
According to an official report released in December 2021, the Department of Defense has maintained a policy prohibiting extremist activities since 1969.
According to the same report, the theft of weapons by the White Patriot Party — a KKK-affiliated, North Carolina-based paramilitary group that stole anti-tank rockets from the military while seeking to establish a “White Homeland” — prompted further updates to the policy in 1986.
Following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a one-day stand-down directing commanding officers to discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel. Soon after, Austin called for immediate action to address the problem and formed a working group that issued a report at the end of 2021.
The report included at least 20 recommended steps, but according to a USA Today investigation, only two appeared to have been completed by the middle of 2023.