Wade Michael Page; the Sikh temple shooter
ABC News is reporting that he’s a veteran and served from 1992 to 1998, I guess we’ll have to wait to see if he was honorably discharged or not. Judging by the years, I have to guess that he was, but obviously, his status as a veteran should have nothing to do with what he did. No more than him being a 40-year-old bald white man with tattoos is an indicator of his propensity to shoot up a temple full of the most peaceful and tolerant people on the face of the Earth (you might disagree with that…but that’s your right). Some of the martyrs Sikhs revere were killed for defending the rights of other people to worship, not necessarily as Sikhs.
Yeah, if Page killed those people for anything, it was for their appearance not for anything they’ve done – kind of the definition of a racially-motivated crime.
The Blaze reports;
Prior to Page’s identification, ABC News was already reporting that the man behind the attack was potentially a “white supremacist“ and a ”skinhead.” The suspect’s landlord also told the Greendale Patch that she believes the man had “just broken up with his girlfriend.”
So, I guess 40-year-old white, bald men with tattoos should be reporting their relationship status to gun dealers when they purchase weapons. To their credit, Mark Potock and the SPLC crowd hasn’t “gone there” yet with the whole veteran thing, yet.
ADDED: Aunty Brat sends us a link to breathless BBC which leads their story with the fact that he was a veteran;
Wade Michael Page reportedly served in the US Army between April 1992 and October 1998, ending his career at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
A federal official told the Associated Press news agency that Page was discharged after being reduced in rank from sergeant to specialist, although the official did not give a reason for the demotion.
Police said on Sunday they were treating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism.
Yes, it was terrorism, but just like the recruiting station shooting in Little Rock was, the shooting at Fort Hood, the Times Square bomber, and the little prick who wanted to blow up a bridge in Ohio. The difference is that the feds are actually calling this one terrorism.
The news conference has been moved up to 11 AM Eastern. So we wait.
ADDED MORE: Marginally related, our friends at The Duffel Blog who make up stuff that’s too close to reality to doubt couldn’t help but write a fictional account of the media’s scramble to pin the murder on the military;
Right now, I’m working on pulling up his military records,” said Davis Smith, a reporter with the New York Times. “I already pulled up something that said he fired a pistol and a rifle in Army basic training. Law enforcement says he used a pistol in the shooting, so it’s quite obvious that the military created this monster.”
Because it’s satire.
Category: Breaking News
I have seen some recent reports which show this guy was busted from SGT to SPC and given a General Discharge. Also he was Hawk missile crewman and then transferred to Military Intelligence for some reason. The media at least won’t be able to use the PTSD narrative. They’ll just stick with the “scary Army vet who once passed through Ft Bragg home of the elite 82nd Airborne” instead.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/sikh-temple-shooter-identified-wade-michael-page/story?id=16937739#.UB_LyKM4eSp
IOW, use “Army veteran” because it furthers the MSM agenda. Nevermind those pesky and inconvenient facts which run counter to said agenda.
Groan.
Military angle hyped by MSM.
Again.
It seems to be norm in all reporting these days. Reporters grabing on to any narritive that fits their personal bias. He was discharged most likely over 15 years ago, which means it had as much relivance as what high school he went to.
CBS News reports that Page enlisted in the Army in April 1992 and was given a less-than-honorable discharge in October 1998. He was last stationed in Fort Bragg, N.C., serving in the psychological operations unit.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/08/06/cbs-news-shooter-identified-as-former-us-military-member/
Fox News is no longer using the word “veteran” to describe this douchebag. Instead they are calling him an ex-Army soldier.
He was probably a boy scout also, and I wonder what religion he was. All probably as relevant as his former military status.
Page’s actions are classified domestic terrorism but, Hassan’s are considered workplace violence?
Frankly the fact that he was in the service shouldnt even be of any news interest. It was 14 years prior to the event and there are no apparent links to service other than he was wearing tactical clothing and using a weapon.
The media-entertainment people suck.
The guy probably pissed hot or got a DUI, Fayatnam is a lonely depressing place.. I have seen it make more than one soldier go down the tubes..
an E-5 who pisses hot usually gets a field grade and then chaptered that is probably what happened with this guy.. I am happy I discovered pacifism and then dudeism after I got out, it really helped me out..
Yeah, so much so that you’re trolling Internet boards in between bongloads.
Glad that’s working out for you so well. If this is “help”, I’d hate to have been in your COC.
“Domestic terrorism” is a federal crime defined by 18 USC 2331. Declaring the shooting to be DT gives the FBI jurisdiction to get involved.
It’s nothing new. We of the used-to-be age recall that Richard Speck was labeled a former sailor, Charles Whitman a former Marine and, of course, there was Lee Harvey Oswald.
I guess the media now has their favorite typecast: tall, white, bald, military veteran who just broke up with his girlfriend.
@12 I got an honorable discharge.. And didn’t start smoking until I got out except for smoking hash a few times in Iraq..
@13: Well that’s all right then. I mean the Feebs did such a bang up job with Hassan.
The New York Post has picture of Page that pretty much removes any doubt about what he was… a skinhead scumbag.
See: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/gunman_id_in_wis_sikh_temple_shooting_BviRraaDAtLNTDwOxSnMfI?utm_source=SFnewyorkpost&utm_medium=SFnewyorkpost
I’m curious to see what you guys can dig up in on this guy, I saw one report late yesterday that said he had been reduced in rank from Sgt. to Specialist and given a general discharge in 1998. This morning most everything I’ve read mentions his rank as Sgt. and a less than honorable discharge.
If he had served from 1942-1948 in the Rhode Island Guard, the media would still start the byline with “Army Veteran”.
This is saying less than honorable discharge.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/08/06/cbs-news-shooter-identified-as-former-us-military-member/
My memory is fuzzy due to only being a dependent at the time, but wasn’t the late 90s when the military started sweeping out a lot of white supremacists and other gang members from the ranks? It seems like all the training we get on this seems to originate from this time frame. Any of the older vets remember anything like that going on at the time?
jasetaro, LL: my guess is they’re talking either a general (under honorable conditions) or a general (OTH). He could have gotten either if he was chaptered-out of the Army. And both are technically “less than” an honorable discharge.
I’m hoping the the Army found out he was a member of an extremist organization and chaptered him out. But The Dude’s theory of him pissing hot and getting busted followed by being chaptered-out is also plausible.
20 and 21: I was thinking the same thing. I was at Bragg in the late 90’s and remember the crackdown on extremist groups and members. I wouldn’t be surprised if this guys proclivities were caught during a tattoo or barracks inspection and chaptered out.
@20, the 90’s was when they swept a lot of folks out, that was the last drawdown. MEPs also started DQ’ing potential enlistees for gang related or certain other tattoos in the mid-90’s.
Sounds like he got busted from E5 to E4 for being drunk on duty, then received a chapter 14-12b for “pattern of misconduct” with a General (under honorable conditions) Discharge.
unholy hell…I think I went to BCT with this guy back in 92. I’ll have to check my yearbook when I get home before I say anymore.
But talk about a small psycho-world.
@17. Not to fault the Sikh witness who was possibly under fire at the moment, but there appear to be a number of tattoos there. Maybe the 9/11 tattoo was the only one he recognized, but the Odin’s Cross with the number 14 (google 14 words) over it are clearly white supremacist tattoos.
What the fuck is it with Nazi assholes and Norse mythology?
@28: It’s not Naziism, but rather Aryan mythology, which Himler and Hitler were projecting.
Prediction: this is commonly be referred to as “domestic terrorism”, which I agree with.
However, those in the MSM who do refer to this way will by in large be the same ones who refused the same thing with Nassan (killing while all the while yelling allah ackbar).
C-
@28: What Old Troopers says. The Nazi mythology was based on the works of a couple of German societies that existed at least earlier than the 1st world war. Other, peripheral, societies had some minor influence here and there, but the two you should search online for, if you want to read more wackiness, are the Thule Gesellschaft, and the Vrill Society.
The common thread with them (and many others) is that the Aryan race once had a great home in what the Romans referred to as “Ultima Thule” a great now lost landmass around Greenland/Iceland. Some authors try and relate it to Plato’s Atlantis. Whatever.
Because of this, the Nazis went whole hog into the Norse mythology, with much alteration via the two societies I listed above.
Make sure you have some adult beverages to hand when you start reading the stuff, because it will help your head.
V/R
@ 28 SO. What the f*ck is it with a$$holes in general? Why is it that every group that believes they are the “chosen ones” wind up getting their a$$es handed to them? The Japanese thought they were the “divine race” destined to rule the east. They ruled the east until some mutt Americans nuked them ’till they glowed. The Nazi’s were the “master race” who were supposed to rule the world. They ruled the world until the rest of the mongrel world kicked their ‘master’ a$$es. As for the current group of “chosen ones” if Allah is so Akbar, why are they still living in mud huts in the 21st century?
An a$$hole is an a$$hole.
Yat Yas 1833:
Concur. Bullies are usually the weakest folks in the area. they depend upon bluster and violence to mask that fact. It’s only when the locals have had enough that they get their just desserts.
I’m wondering how long it will take the Lamestream Media to start calling the military a breeding ground for racism and using this as proof…
@31, my professor in socio-mythology actually downgraded one of my papers where I went into that and used it to show how Germany used the mythology to inspire its fighting force into one of the strongest in the world.
I mean, who here doesn’t want to go to Valhalla? All the fighting you can have, all the beer you can drink, and all the women you can… yeah, you get the picture.
Personally, if this foreskin head did this because of his ideology, then I hope the feds crack down on the Neo-Nazi, foreskin head, and KKK. Heck, that might even get some senators out of office!
@20,24: In the mid to late 90s they cracked down hard on that crap. The feces hit the spinning device when a couple of Neo-Nazi Soldiers did an interview on either 20/20 or 60 Minutes, I can’t remember which. All of us had our tatoos photographed, and I was stationed at Schofiel Barracks at the time not Ft. Bragg.
On a side note, has the media tried to tie the shooter to the Tea Party or Fox News yet?
MSM ignores “honor killings” of daughters from muslim families. Women who embrace American culture, dress, and date non muslims than are targeted by disapproving father or brothers for elimination. This happens in Europe as well. Media just parrots the same line of how muslims are a “peaceful honorable people”. Well…except if your a woman who wants independence and individual expression, or anyone who dares criticize Islam, or say muslims like pulled pork sandwiches – thats different.
@YatYas, the answer to your question “what is it with a$$holes in general?” is the same answer that applies to my question “what is it with birds and cars?”
CNN reported this morning that Page was discharged for patterns of misconduct. Having watched a TV documentary filmed on a carrier, in which an E-3 sailor with racist, etc., leanings was repeatedly put on report for the things he said and did and finally discharged by the Navy, my guess would be that Page did and said the same things.
Wasn’t McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, ex-Army? No bald white guy with tatts there. I think he had red hair and freckles, too. (All ginger guys can stop groaning now.)
These guys are jerks. They don’t want anyone near them who isn’t exactly like them, pale people with crappy, whiny attitudes and an unjustified sense of being deprived of something. They are jerks, they have always been jerks, and whatever they do that makes their lives crap is someone else’s fault.
And can anyone answer my question: what is it with birds and clean cars?
Ex-PH2: it’s the birds’ way of getting even because you didn’t pay the old lady “Tuppence a Bag”. (smile)
Hondo: That’s right, guv’ner……
CNN plays Billy Joel’s “Only the good die young” at conclusion of commercials leading back to roundtable discussion about Sikh shooting…insensitive or just pure coincidence? http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/08/06/cnn-plays-only-good-die-young-after-segment-about-sikh-temple-shootin
Actually, if you think about it, this looks like some kind of copycat crime to me. Just sayin’….
It has been reported that the reason he got busted from E-5 to E-4 was drunk on duty.
Carlos Mencia’s comedy about hindus being mistaken for muslims by dumb people since 9/11 come to life: “If you’re going to be a racist, read the f*cking manual!”
Just an update because I mentioned it above.
I did not go to BCT with a “Wade M. Page”. I went to BCT in June of 1992 with a “Michael Page” (no middle name or initial listed). So the world isn’t quite as small or as psycho as I had thought.
I still think it’s a copycat crime of opportunity. Here’s why:
Holmes flunks his oral exams for his PhD, drops school, buys guns from a shop, orders ammo online, makes bombs, picks a place and time when he knows a large group of people will be together in a place that is difficult to escape quickly, especially if people panic.
Page gets busted and discharged with “do not re-up” on his DD214, leaves his job after losing his girlfriend, buys a gun from a shop, picks a place and time when he knows a large group of people will together in a place difficult to escape from quickly, esp. if people panic.
If you want to include the anti-social behavior of both of them, I think they both were or became loners at some point, and I also think (speculative) that they both blame other people for their disappointments in life.
Well, we all suffer disappointments, but what most of us do is deal with it like grown-ups and move on to something else.
@ 14; 2-17 AirCav: I’m of that age too. Speck, Whitman, & Oswald were all during the age of the draft. Practically every male was a veteran then.
I’ve provided some detail & conclusions, particularly on the knee-jerk press reaction that he was a veteran:
http://plbirnamwood.blogspot.com/2012/08/sikh-temple-tragedy-exploits-stereotypes.html