According to the service, Lance Cpl. Mason E. Mead, an infantry assault Marine with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, is currently being discharged after admitting to “advocating supremacist ideology” last month. Mead will be discharged under other-than-honorable conditions.
Mead “admitted guilt to an Article 92 charge, advocating supremacist ideology on May 7,” 1st Lt. Jose Uriarte, a Marine spokesman, told Marine Corps Times.
“Article 92 deals with the failure to follow orders or regulations and violation of orders/ regulations. Different situations are covered under Article 92 as follows: violating general order or regulation, violating other written regulation or order, failure to obey lawful order and dereliction of duty,” the Joseph L. Jordan attorney group writes on its website.
Mead is currently at the Marine Corps Base in Hawaii, where his discharge is being processed, Capt. Eric Abrams, a Marine Corps spokesperson, told Task & Purpose. Mead will no longer qualify to receive benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs due to the nature of his discharge.
The Marine Corps began investigating Mead in February after tweets in which he praised Nazis were uncovered on his Twitter account.
In one of photos posted by the account, a Marine is pictured arranging TNT blocks into the shape of a swastika, the emblem of the German Nazi Party. However, it is unclear if the person photographed is Mead himself.
Another photo shows a man in front of Mount Fuji in Japan with the caption “ching chong.” The photo also included a series of emojis including a Japanese flag, a dog a knife and a fork. A comment by Mead’s account on the post reads “excited to try Japanese teriyaki doberman.”
In another Twitter post by Mead, he wrote that he considers himself politically “to the right” of fascism and the National Socialist Movement, an American, neo-Nazi political party based in Detroit, Michigan. He added that he “would have fought in the Waffen SS if possible,” referring to the armed wing of the Nazi Party's SS organization.
Mead’s Twitter account has since been deleted.