The low number can be a product of how the poll questions are asked. If you simply ask “Do you see White Nationalism” you may elicit a low response. However if you precede the question with examples of White Nationalism (have you seen swastikas in the barracks, have you heard people joking about lynchings, do people speak about the holocaust as being fake) then ask the poll questions, this would be more likely to elicit a higher response.
Having taken way to many surveys for the Army they tend to be simplistic (and mandatory, and a chore) . Not a lot of conjoint analysis going on.
It’s imprtant to note that this was in the late ‘90s. There was basically none of the tattoo culture that is so pervasive today. People who wore this type of tattoo were nearly 100% associated with some form of extremist ideology. Sure, some of them were punk/straightedge something-or-other, but you sure as hell didn’t see the average 20 yo kid with, say, an iron cross tattoo. The SPLC keeps this list not to say that everyone who sports this type of marking is a white supremacist, but that these designs are historically so heavily associated with hate groups as to be a major indicator of affiliation. Same as Pepe the Frog and red shoelaces. Tattoo culture has changed dramatically in the past 20 years, but the original usage being diluted doesn’t erase the predominant intent.
So nothing has changed since the late 1970’s when I served. The U.S. military is a complex mix of people, some good, some bad but all willing to work together to defend the country they love. I bet it’s the same all over the world.
Yes, a complex mix. And of course in a large group of people you’ll get the whole range of persons from really, really nice guy to total, total asshole.
But it seems that there is a specific type of person who joined to defend the country they love, but not everybody in it.
