By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
July 23, 2024
How can slides used to train soldiers at the country’s largest U.S. Army base contain information that does not “represent the official policy or views” of the Army? How did the slides originate? And how have they been used for the last seven years without anyone correcting the misinformation?
These are among the many questions being asked of the Secretary of the Army and other high-ranking officials in the wake of a July 10 social media post by independent journalist Sam Shoemate. The post revealed that slides used at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) to train military personnel who guard the base gates listed pro-life organizations Operation Rescue and the National Right to Life as well as drivers of cars with “Choose Life” plates as “terrorist groups.”
“The military and Department of Defense are insanely out of control. Service-members are being indoctrinated to view Pro-Life groups as the enemy,” Shoemate posted on X along with a photo of the PowerPoint slide.
Fallout was swift as national media outlets picked up the story, and the pro-life organizations that were targeted responded with press releases pointing out that they had never advocated violence, much less terrorism.
“In a presentation that is deeply offensive to pro-life Americans across the nation, Fort Liberty promoted outright lies about National Right to Life in a demonstration of lazy scholarship,” NRL president Carol Tobias wrote. “In our over 50-year history, National Right to Life has always, consistently, and unequivocally, condemned violence against anyone.”
Within two days of Shoemate’s post, 88 U.S. lawmakers led by U.S. Sen. Ted Budd and Congressman Richard Hudson, both North Carolina Republicans, fired off a letter to Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth demanding to know why pro-life Americans are being depicted as terrorists in Fort Liberty training materials. Sen. Thom Tillis and Congress members Chuck Edwards, Patrick McHenry, Greg Murphy and David Rouzer, all from North Carolina, were among those signing the letter.
“Smearing Pro-Life Americans is despicable and emblematic of the ongoing politicization of the military under the Biden-Harris administration,” the letter stated in part. “The American public expects the Department of Defense and its personnel to defend the homeland from actual terrorists, not Americans who seek protections for children in the womb.”
In her response, Wormuth promised that the slides would no longer be used to train soldiers at Forth Liberty. She said that senior Army leaders at the base did not direct that the slides be used and were not aware of their use until the story broke. She said an Army Regulation 15-6 investigation of the matter had been initiated.
Wormuth’s letter said that the Directorate of Emergency Services at Fort Liberty has used the slides for the last seven years. However, it did not answer the lawmakers’ questions regarding how many soldiers had been briefed with the slides or whether similar briefings had been used at other military installations.
Lawmakers pressed Wormuth for an installation-by-installation review to ensure that Army anti-terrorism training aligns with DoD anti-terrorism standard guidance and training. Fort Liberty has a total population of roughly 282,000, including some 50,000 active-duty soldiers as well as family members, reservists and civilian workers.
“It’s hard to say what is most troubling about this incident. The fact that the training materials had been used for so long and leadership says they had not been vetted is shocking. Do those in charge not pay attention to what is being taught?” asked the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League. “And if they did know, that’s even worse. Plus, the hundreds if not thousands of soldiers passing through this training … why did no one raise the alarm? Were they already accustomed to this type of propaganda? God forbid.”
This is not the first time pro-life organizations have erroneously been labeled as dangerous.
Earlier this year, Students for Life of America (SFLA) was named in a University of Maryland project called PIRUS (Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States). ” According to its website, the database tracks “over 3,500 violent and non-violent extremists who adhere to far-right, far-left, Islamist, or single-issue ideologies in the United States covering 1948-2022.” It is run by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, (START,) a research center listed as a Department of Homeland Security Emeritus Center of Excellence.
SFLA sent a cease-and-desist letter to START, demanding it remove the group from the list, which it did in April.
“As Christians, we must be willing to stand for life and to stand with pro-life organizations when they come under attack, even when that attack comes from our very own government,” Creech said. “The Army must be held accountable.”
