The Military’s Failure to Reckon With White Supremacy in Its Ranks

Liam Collins joined the Marine Corps in 2017 with the intention of recruiting other soldiers to form a paramilitary defense force, a “modern day SS,” as he wrote in the now-defunct neo-Nazi forum Iron March in 2016. “Everyone [in the group] is going to have been required to serve in a nation’s military, whether U.S., U.K. or Poland,” Collins wrote, according to a federal indictment filed in November. “It’s a goal for the long term.”

In the military, Collins was promoted to Marine lance corporal at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where he served as a rifleman and earned medals including the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and a Humanitarian Service Medal, according to his personnel records. The whole time, federal prosecutors allege, Collins was a committed white supremacist intent on inciting a race war and creating a white separatist state.