In a reply letter prompted by the American Center for Law and Justice, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told the ACLJ it is not the U.S. Army’s belief that pro-life groups are terrorists. Nor are pro-life views an indicator of terrorism, he wrote.
The Army secretary’s letter, dated July 16, was written to the ACLJ after the law firm wrote Driscoll and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on behalf of its client, Operation Rescue.
“While I cannot undo the harm that this training caused,” Driscoll writes, “I want to offer my sincerest apology to Operation Rescue, National Right to Life, and all pro-life groups negatively impacted by the false characterization of all pro-life organizations made by this training.”
Before the training slides were dropped last fall, The Army Times reported almost 10,000 U.S. Army soldiers had sat through “Terror Awareness” training at Fort Bragg that informed them national groups National Right to Life and Operation Rescue were examples of domestic terrorism.
According to Army documents it obtained, ACLJ says the training was mandatory for soldiers conducting base security, such as guards assigned to vehicle entrances.
The Times article said the training slides had been used for anti-terrorism training since 2017 and were pulled only when photos of them were posted to social media and triggered public backlash.
Carol Tobias, of National Right to Life, tells AFN it was alarming to learn the U.S. military was being told her peaceful organization was engaged in terrorism.
"We don't want to hurt anyone,” she says. “So it was it was actually kind of scary to think that your federal government could be coming after you because of your beliefs."
In fact, the ACLJ’s four-page letter to Hegseth and Driscoll was more than just a demand for an apology. Citing Freedom of Information documents it obtained from the Army under the Biden administration, the ACLJ alleged there was no innocent “mistake” about a wrong title on a slide. The letter explains how the supposed investigation by the Army was, in reality, an attempt to cover up a training slide that ACLJ attorneys concluded dated back to at least 2011.
Secretary Driscoll’s letter to the ACLJ seems to suggest that allegation was taken seriously and an investigation was conducted. Citing the Biden administration, Driscoll writes that “failure to provide full transparency or take responsibility for such a grievous error is wholly unacceptable.”
The letter also states the Army has reviewed “all security mission training materials, including antiterrorism and protection training, across all Army commands, service component commands, and direct reporting units to ensure these trainings are factually accurate, comply with the law, and align with Army values.”
Going forward, Tobias said the pro-life community must never forget how it was wrongly labeled by its own federal government and its military.
"But I am very confident that under this administration, and especially the military under Pete Hegseth, this is not going to happen," says Tobias. "Maybe in a new administration, but not right now."
