Ryan Riley; That Guardsman with the Neo-nazis
Our frenemy, Adam Weinstein at Mother Jones discovered the name of the “US National Guardsman” who was training with the Neo-Nazis I wrote about earlier by actually reading the arrest affidavit. So, I went and found him on AKO. Here’s what the affidavit said about Ryan Riley;
It said that Ryan trained these nimnils in hand-to-hand combat and edged weapon techniques, breaking down weapons, water purification and survival skills. Ryan is a specialist (an E-4) in the Guard – it says he’s assigned to A Co. 1/138th Infantry, so here’s my question. How much training have you guys in the Guard had in hand-to-hand combat and edged weapon techniques. They might have actually learned something in breaking down weapons, but their weapons probably came with a book that would have done a better job. Survival techniques? What, like picking out a good MRE? (I stole that one from an email I had with Weinstein) Water purification – I guess it takes skill to drop a pill in a canteen.
Yeah, I know, if the Neo-Nazis paid Riley, they got screwed. None of those are subjects they have much time to cover during their weekend drills in the Guard what with all of the sensitivity training and common skills training they get saddled with. Even if his duty MOS is 11-series, the AKO account isn’t clear on his specialty.
Now, in Adam’s piece, he writes;
[M]any of the nation’s most infamous political criminals and terrorists—from Lee Harvey Oswald to Timothy McVeigh to Nidal Malik Hasan—were veterans.
With the exception of maybe Oswald, those guys didn’t learn the skills they used to accomplish their nefarious goals from the military. I was in the same unit as McVeigh during Desert Storm and I don’t know how to build a truck bomb. And the Army doesn’t train it’s psychiatrists on the combat pistol range, that whole Hippocratic Oath thing, ya know. Although Weinstein says it would be unfair to paint with a broad brush all people in the military with the actions of a few, it’s also unfair to blame military training. And since Adam reads this blog, he knows that;
As conservative military blogger Jonn Lilyea points out, “One guy in the Missouri National Guard doesn’t a conspiracy make.”
Had to use that “conservative” in there didn’t you, Adam? Everyone else calls me a milblogger without mixing in the politics.
If Riley is in fact using his military know-how to prepare for war with American blacks and Jews, it’s fair to ask what the military can do to keep guys like him out of uniform.
Simple enough to say out loud, but much more difficult to practice. How about some suggestions as to how the military can weed out racists, since they already check police records and credit records. What else can they do? Lie detectors?
Category: Shitbags
See, it all fits into the media narrative. If someone commits a crime, more noteworthy if his military background is hyped, no matter what MOS.
The media automatically assumes that if someone was in the military, they learned all these super duper ninja skills. It’s like that Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph. He was an 11 bravo, but the media made it seem like he learned all these survival skills and how to build a pipe bomb and whatnot.
So, this dude is a pinhead yes, but I found your blog post here pretty insulting. There are Guardsmen out there who are just as if not more proficient with small unit tactics, weaponry, and hand to hand combat. This isn’t the national guard you knew fifteen years ago man.
Most NG people have some Active Army time; sometimes quite a bit. Interestingly, our unit’s big draw that gets people from Big Army to come play with us when their contract is up is that we actually train for our MOS field, where our BA counterparts usually end up in the motor pool or painting rocks. I have more experience in my field after 9 years in the NG (over 8 of them active duty NG) than many of my Big Army friends who have been tasked for other duties.
We had an opportunity to send a few soldiers last year to a two-week Canadian military cold weather survival course. If this particular tool had done something like that, he might have acquired some of those skills. I’m throwing this out as a theoretical, but it’s hardly beyond the realm of possibility. The fact that he’s an E4 in an infantry unit doesn’t necessarily mean he’s worthless, either; you might sit in a junior slot for a long time just because you weren’t willing to transfer to another unit for a promotion (assuming that there was a slot available). [I basically have to wait for someone to die to compete for SFC, unless I move to one of a handful of other states with my MOS that might have an opening.]
More than likely, yes, he’s a complete tool kit who doesn’t know anything he didn’t get out of the skill level 10 book, but you never know.
I’ve discovered that many folks who’ve never been in the miltary think that we all have some kind of super ninja training…. and can do all kinds of stuff like Rambo. Sometimes I found it was useful to just let them think that was all true…. Like when working as a cop after OIFIII, some guys in the bar I had to go into said:”don’t fuck with him, he just got back from Iraq and and kick all our asses.”
I couldn’t but I wasn’t going to shatter their dreams. I just did Mess Kit Repair and never, ever left the FOB.
FReminds me of when I first got to 29 Palms in 1981 for electronics school. There was an event that happened in Malibu, and I still recall it some thirty odd years later.
Two guys wanted to join this “Ninja Gang”. Part of the initiation was to spend an evening surviving in the wirlderness of Malibu Beach. Anyway, I guess at some point they got bored, so they decided to break into a home on the beach. The first problem was that the homeowner was home when they broke in. The next problem was the homeowner activated an alarm summoning the Malibu law enforcement. So they took the homeowner hostage. The homeowner was Penny Marshall. Yes, that Penny Marshall. So the cops show up, a helicopter is hovering above, and they decide to book. They rush out the door and try to climb down a cliff to escape. The next problem was when they got stuck. The cops had to rescue them, then arrested them. One of the guys arrested was 19 years old, the other was 18. The Los Angelas Times reported that the 18 year old learned his “Ninja Warrior Skills” when he was in the Marines. I would like to emphasize that they referred to his time in that past tense. An 18 year old no longer in the Marine Corps? He must have went straight from the yellow footprints at MCRD to Seps Battalion. I never had “Ninja Warrior Skills” when I went to boot camp. I must have had a dental appointment that hour. No worries though, I did complete the MCO for Ninja Warrior Skills.
Meant to write MCI, as in Marine Corps Institute. I need to proofread prior to posting.
I am closely familiar with the Guard having a very close relative who is an Infantry officer in the Guard, currently on his fourth deployment as a Guardsman, this time in Afghanistan. He learned most of his 11B skills in Ranger School and as an enlisted man for four years in A Co, 1st Rgr Bn, then has honed them during Guard deployments as an 11B NCO and officer. I agree with Joshua, there are some pretty awesome soldiers in today’s Guard. I retired from the active Army in ’93 and the Guard is way different from 15-20 years ago.
All that said it still doesn’t qualify Riley to train anyone or excuse his stupidity. What a dirt bag and a disgrace.
How come everyone is a Neo Nazi? Don’t they have regular Nazi’z anymore? It’s like the comic books. No heroes. They are all super heroes. It’s similar to everyone being above average, I guess.
Oh, like I’ve never offended you guys before?
@8 – Don’t forget models…they’re all Super now I guess…..
Have ever noticed that in all of these “militias”, everyone is either a Colonel or a General? No enlisted slime? Who do they get to do the shit details? Similar to only two enlisted guys in the whole Korean War, Radar and Klinger.
If I got offended every time I heard a Nasty Gurls remark, I wouldn’t have made it very far. I do, however, feel a vague desire to speak up for my sub-branch (twig?) when appropriate.
Mostly, I feel a dim sympathy for the AA people I know. Knowing that I can QUIT my job and be a civilian for all but one weekend a month is a huge benefit some days; I don’t have to use it, but I know that escape hatch is there…
National Guard soldiers may cross train if one of the guys is a high-speed Ranger. Most of the rest get their skills as police.
How about some suggestions as to how the military can weed out racists, since they already check police records and credit records. What else can they do? Lie detectors?
Exhaustive psychological profiles, which can then also be used to filter out other anti-American types such as liberals.
I have already stated my experience with the National Guard…and sometimes, I wished I was still there. The one weekend a month was a break from my day job (bartender, yeah…I know…I was a loser at 17-22 years old).
Anyways, I’m sure that he could not have just picked up a copy of SAS Survival techniques (Sold at any local Army Surplus store for $29.99 or Barnes and Noble for $.99 on clearance) and just read it and regurgitated that information back to them…hell no, must have learned it in the Army.
And on the hand to hand skills, my son is enrolled in Tae Kwon Do (I have a black belt in Kempo and black sash in Kung-fu), does this qualify my 8 year old to teach these ass hats “hand to hand and edged weapon fighting”?
Riley may just have a shit weekend at his next drill. Just saying…
Hell why do we have to atribute his being able to fight and survive to being in the guard, helloo here in Missouri we do have hillbillies also! Not everyone is the sophisticated purveyor of dick and fart jokes such as I.
You know Missouri used to be filled with just us lowly shovel grunts willing to blow shit up, but now they add a group even stupider than us and see what happens…
No. 8 Mr. Hack Stone :
Your comments are really funny !!
(except No. 6 — dead serious)
By the way — I heard something on the news about Nazis ELECTED, in Greece.
May we assume they’re just REGULARS (nothing special) ??
#11 – It comes straight out of Ozma of Oz –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_with_the_Green_Whiskers
– scroll to “Omby Amby.” See? They study the military classics.
I will point out that, compared to the average civilian, particularly the average liberal civilian, even the average Air Force clerk has far better training in planning and executing goal-directed violence.
The sheep have an instinctive fear of the sheepdog.
The whole approach seems a bit over the top. Hand to hand combat and survival skills for fighting Jews and Blacks in America? A wiser approach might just be to invest in some pork products, a clear weakness to each of those groups.
We get basic combatives, there is no Knife fighting CTT classes (Underwater or above). thats based on 24 years Guard and being an O/C-T watching platoons train at FTIG, Dix, Drum, Shelby, Hood, Blanding…
This really pisses me off cause the doucher is not only a member of the Missouri Guard, which is my home state and the same state I was a member of, but his company is based out of KC. I really hate nazis. This asscrack just brought a lot of shame down on my state… I am glad I am not still in and he is not one of my troops…now I got my blood all up.
[…] identity was first guessed at by milblogger Jonn Lilyea, who found a Missouri-based “Ryan T. Riley” in Army Knowledge Online, the service’s […]
[…] Neo-Nazi in the MONG May 16th, 2012 Last week we discussed the Neo-Nazi, Ryan Riley, from the Missouri National Guard who had trained a white supremacist group in Florida. […]
I spent 5 years active (2 years at Campbell, extended beyond 4yrs/17 weeks so I could have a 3 year accompanied tour in Alaska), all infantry, some of it in an S3 shop as a driver/admin clerk. In the Guard I was with a LRSD unit and Stryker brigade until I got out last summer.
In the course of all of that, outside of various Army combatives (which was just useful enough to have a big prison guard/weekend warior lay on top of me sporting a throbbing erection), I left the service with very little I could practically train a white trash militia with. Being of the Hebrew persuasion like Weinstein, I have to fight the urge to yawn when I read about these folks. Let the ersatz tough guys run around the woods, finding themselves winded and sweaty after two steps…on the Jewish side of the equation we’ll win by putting up a barrier made out of long staircases.