I'd been up the northwest corner of Montana months earlier to do a story on the Militia of Montana, which was running quite a large mail-order operation and was affiliated with Aryan Nation just across the state border in Idaho. Leader John Trochmann had bent my ear about Jews, feminists, the New World Order and Russian troops supposedly training in the woods. On April 19, when the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building occurred, my first thought was "militia," because I knew the importance of the date to them, and I knew the importance of Oklahoma City to their philosophy.
At the time, the feds were pursuing "Middle Eastern" terrorist suspects, and the Militia denied to me that they had anything to do with the operation. A few days later, Attorney General Janet Reno said in a press conference that domestic terrorists were being investigated, and the FBI expected to announce some arrests shortly. That set off a scramble in my newsroom to get up to Noxon, either for the raid or for reaction to it. When one of my editors, at my request, called Trochmann to let him know we were coming, Trochmann's nephew warned that if we flew over the Militia's property, we might be shot down.
We weren't, and this is not the story from that trip.
But a high school teacher in Noxon asked me to come to a government class he taught to watch Trochmann debate the Montana Attorney General, and to talk about how the media was covering the story. That produced a fine little story, but the one I love the best is what happened on the town lawn when a white-haired former nurse confronted Trochmann, with whom she'd square-danced, about his beliefs.
From the Missoulian, April 30, 1995
