WASHINGTON — A U.S. Marine Corps lance corporal who marched with white supremacists and bragged about violence he committed during last year’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been thrown out of the service, after serving a month behind bars.
Vasillios Pistolis served 28 days of confinement at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina after being convicted at a court martial for disobeying orders and making false statements, in connection with his role in the deadly Charlottesville rally, in August 2017.
Pistolis had not been arrested by police in Charlottesville.
A report by ProPublica and Frontline PBS highlighted his involvement with the Atomwaffen Division and Traditionalist Worker Party — two of the most militant groups in the neo-Fascist movement.
According to the report, Pistolis had bragged about his involvement in the Charlottesville violence.
“Today cracked three skulls open with virtually no damage to myself,” he wrote on Aug. 12 — the day of the violent rally and counterprotest, in which Heather Heyer was killed.
Photographs taken at the rally depict Pistolis clubbing a counter-protester with a wooden flagpole.
“There is no place for racial hatred or extremism in the Marine Corps,” wrote Maj. Brian Block in a release published by the Jacksonville Daily News in North Carolina. “Bigotry and radical extremism run contrary to our core values.”
