Army via a Salt Lake City recruiting station in August 1986.
According to a service record The Tribune obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, he enlisted in the U.S. Mangels, who lives in the AUB community of Rocky Ridge, had an extended and varied career in the U.S. Mangels said the Latin contains the keywords describing the “title of liberty” from the Book of Mormon in Alma 46:12: “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.”
(Courtesy Jesse Raynor) This patch was meant to symbolize membership in the Priesthood Protection Team, a group of men belonging to the Apostolic United Brethren. The patch sports an orange Star of David in the center and 12 small white stars on the edges. He also provided a photograph of the patch Mangels created. Raynor provided The Tribune with emails, spreadsheets and other documents outlining his time in the Mount Pleasant PPT. Two women walked into Allred’s chiropractor clinic in Murray and shot him dead.
In 1977, Ervil LeBaron, who had started a polygamous church of his own, ordered the assassination of rival polygamous leaders. The AUB was the victim in one of the most-violent episodes of so-called Mormon fundamentalism. The AUB practices other teachings that the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has abandoned, including a sharing of assets and a belief that Adam from the biblical Garden of Eden is also God. Allred formed the sect in the 1950s to continue what he believed to be the fundamental teachings of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, who commanded a militia in Illinois called the Nauvoo Legion. (Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) When AUB members in Mount Pleasant started to describe the force as a militia in 2013, then- AUB President LaMoine Jenson shut down the group. Jeffrey Kunz, the AUB bishop in Mount Pleasant when the PPT was being trained, said the unit was referred to as the “security team.” Rumors about a PPT militia, which has not been publicly discussed by insiders until now, have heightened those worries. A blog articulating the dissidents’ views, “ Turmoil Within the AUB,” recently had posts and reader comments expressing concerns about guards posted around AUB meetings in Pinesdale, Mont., and security exercises such as the searching of rooms in the meetinghouse to ensure there were no threats there.ĭissidents see these measures as signs Thompson and his supporters view the dissenters as threats. Whatever was created in central Utah in 2011 might have been ignored if not for more-recent events in the AUB.Ĭurrent AUB President Lynn Thompson has been accused of embezzling church funds and molesting relatives years before he ascended to the top post, creating fractures within the sect. Mangels asked the men not to tell others what they were doing. They marched through the forest to practice military maneuvers. Men in the PPT, Raynor and Mangels acknowledge, bought and learned about firearms. It’s a polygamous sect with enclaves across the American West. Thanks!”Īlmost 7½ years later, Raynor contends the PPT was a militia whose purpose was to defend members of the Apostolic United Brethren, also known as the Allred Group. Also, let me know what it would cost to buy the water filtration systems you showed us. Army special forces soldier who was training the unit. “Can you do two more Ranger Handbooks?” Raynor emailed Scott Mangels, the former U.S. 17, 2011, Raynor was trying to ensure the last two guys in the PPT had handbooks. Raynor had Microsoft Excel spreadsheets showing who had AR-15s, Kevlar helmets and vests, first aid kits and even how cold of a temperature each man’s sleeping bag could withstand. Army Ranger Handbook.Īs quartermaster, he was responsible for making sure the men in his Mount Pleasant unit, which had been dubbed the Priesthood Protection Team, or PPT, were properly outfitted. Jesse Raynor needed two more copies of the U.S.