National Guard member loses job following neo-Nazi allegations

(JTA) — A member of the Missouri National Guard was stripped of his full-time state job after co-workers complained that he is a neo-Nazi.

Nathan Wooten, whose job was serving as part of a state military honor guard at the funerals for Missouri war veterans, had a portrait of Adolf Hitler in his living room and named his son after a German SS leader, co-workers said in their complaints, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Wooten was fired on March 16, just as the Post-Dispatch was poised to publish an article about the complaints, according to the newspaper. He remains a member of the National Guard.

Wooten’s enlistment expires in May. He could be denied re-enlistment.

Wooten reportedly joined the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement in 2007 and, according to complaints, tried to recruit co-workers.

Wooten reportedly participated in a neo-Nazi protest and burning of books by Jewish authors in November 2008 in Jefferson City, Mo., according to the Post-Dispatch, citing a co-worker, who told the newspaper he saw photographs on Wooten’s cell phone of the burning. Wooten also reportedly told the co-worker about entering a Jewish cemetery and urinating on a grave.