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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Jason Wilson

Ex-US air force specialist with Christian nationalist ties leads combat trainings

closeup of torso of a US air force member of a search and rescue crew
A US air force member of a search and rescue crew. Michael Caughran was a USAF survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialist. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

A former US air force survival expert with militia and Christian nationalist connections is running survival and live-fire combat trainings in remote locations throughout the Pacific north-west, boasting on his website that the training incorporates trained law enforcement officers, “church security” operatives, and current and former US military members.

Michael Patrick Caughran’s new training business, American Reconstruction Concepts (ARC) shows organizational and personnel continuities with an earlier organization that explicitly offered “biblical training on war” to young people. That organization, Team Rugged, was directly connected with both a neo-Confederate pastor and a former Washington state legislator who has advocated for Christian nationalism, who a state house investigation found to have participated in “domestic terrorism”.

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