He was entrenched in the KKK when he made an unlikely friend — a Muslim refugee who invited him to Iftar — the meal enjoyed after sundown during Ramadan.
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00:00We're trained to shoot at paper targets that look like Muslims.
00:05We're trained to interrogate, search, and detain other soldiers who are dressed up like Muslims.
00:30I just say, hey man, do you want to come to Iftar dinner? There'll be a lot of great food.
00:39We're hosting it for the community. You're welcome to come.
00:47On October 31st, 2008, I lost a very good close comrade, friend of mine, to a firefight in Afghanistan.
00:55And I got angry. I got real angry.
00:58I felt like everything was pushing me to pick a side, pick a side.
01:02And with the drug addiction and the anger and the issues that I was dealing with as a PTSD combat vet,
01:11I felt like the only side to pick was the side of those that I felt like were being attacked,
01:16which was, you know, Southern white Americans.
01:23I got online and started Googling, you know, ways to protect the white race.
01:27Proactive measures in protecting the white race. It didn't take me long. I found the Ku Klux Klan.
01:30Within minutes, I was leaving a message on an answering machine and somebody called me back.
01:34And these people are trained with their ideology to take your fears, your rhetoric, your upbringing,
01:41and whatever emotional weaknesses you have and use them against you.
01:58My name is Arno McKayless.
02:00And Arno began a very long and brutal journey of rewiring my brain.
02:28You know, when I got here and I seen the burqas and I seen the traditional Muslim garb,
02:34and it was scary for me, you know. I mean, it brought back a lot of memories, a lot of good and bad.
02:40When Chris came, got out of his car and came to say hello to me, the first thing he said was,
02:45Salaam Alaikum. That's enough for me. That's it.
02:51He came to welcome me at my event with an Islamic greeting.
02:58What else to say to that?
03:04Am I recovering? No. Am I recovering? Absolutely.