Two Virginians run a local county-approved militia, one that has made overt threats against the government. They also both happen to be top-performing noncommissioned officers in the Virginia Army National Guard, serving the very government one of them has repeatedly warned is drifting toward tyranny.
It’s a seemingly contradictory set of roles that likely runs afoul of new Army rules that explicitly prohibit anti-government behavior — for soldiers both on active duty and in the Guard.
Staff Sgts. Daniel Abbott and Alexandra Griffeth jointly run the Campbell County Militia, which operates in the rural surroundings of Lynchburg, Virginia, with Abbott serving as the militia’s commander and having ties to other similar groups in the region.
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The militia, which appears to be mostly white based on photos posted to its public-facing social media, was formed roughly five years ago, following a rise in other similar groups in Virginia after a Democratic wave of victories in the state and gun control fights.
In 2020, Campbell County’s board of supervisors officially recognized Abbott’s militia in a six to one vote to serve “as a barrier against a tyrannical government.”
Military.com reviewed several hours of recordings of meetings of the Campbell County Militia published on social media sites, most of which featured Abbott as a key speaker either at…
