Land of the free

Four soldiers from the 4th Brigade combat team of the Army’s Third Infantry Division have been tried for the murders of Michael Roark and his girl friend Tiffany York.  The two were murdered execution style by Anthony Peden, Christopher Salmon, and Michael Burnett right outside Fort Stewart in Georgia by the orders of Private Isaac Aguigui.  The four soliders including Roark had formed an anarchist militia group, Forever Enduring Always Ready (F.E.A.R.), recruiting troubled and distressed soldiers.  The militia group’s plans had been to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.  Private Aguigui had invested $500,000 of his dead wife’s insurance money to start the militia group.  They had used $87,000 of the insurance money to buy semiautomatic weapons and materials for bombs.  Aguigui had even purchased land in Washington State so he could carry out his plan to blow up a dam and poison the state’s apple crop.

Michael Burnett has pleaded guilty to the two murders and has made a deal with the prosecutors to give up his fellow soldiers and any details about the militia group.  It sounds like he was way in over his head and had a push from Private Aguigui.  Prosecutors are still not sure how many members are involved with F.E.A.R. and the Army is still investigating the case at Fort Stewart.

The whole situation sounds like a real life Fight Club.  Of course troubled soliders who most likely have PTSD could be persuaded to join a “patriot group” in hopes for a better future.  Private Aguigui took advantage of them and brainwashed them in to thinking they should overthrow their government and now look where they stand.  It is almost a blessing in disguise that the militia group was discovered in this manner, saving the lives of thousands who could have been killed in F.E.A.R’s race to the top.