The crackle of handheld radios broke the morning stillness. Sound carries in the country, and on the rural outskirts of Arab, Ala., curious neighbors stepped onto their porches, craning their necks to see what was going on. Some thought the police had found an escaped inmate who had been a leading story on the local news. But even from afar, there was no mistaking the outsize yellow letters on the uniformed figures entering the single-story house at the end of the two-lane road: FBI.
The word spread quickly. Claudia Schultz was walking out of her jewelry shop on the town's small main street when another store owner told her Joshua James had been arrested. Schultz was incredulous. "Josh? You mean our Josh?" In Arab, a town of 8,380 in northeastern Alabama, much of the community knew James, 34, as a soft-spoken, God-fearing family man with three young kids who ran his own pressure-washing business. Those who knew him better considered him a local hero—an Army combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient who got choked up when he talked to local teenagers about enlisting in the U.S. military.
But the federal agents who showed up on James' doorstep on March 9 described a very different man: an extremist who had not just broken the law but also carried out an assault on the same government he had sworn to defend as a soldier.
For weeks, James had helped plan an operation to disrupt the certification on Jan. 6 of President Joe Biden's electoral victory, investigators say, by coordinating and recruiting others to travel to Washington with paramilitary gear, including guns, tactical vests, helmets and radio equipment. A federal conspiracy indictment contends James and at least 15 other members of the Oath Keepers, an anti-government militia, had organized, equipped and trained ahead of the siege that left five dead and dozens more injured. James was among the throngs of supporters of defeated President Donald Trump who rammed their way into the seat of American democracy. "Get out of my Capitol," James allegedly shouted at riot officers. "This is my f-cking building!"
For many, reconciling the war hero and family man with the Jan. 6 insurrectionist is not easy. Federal prosecutors have described the Capitol rioters as a fringe group of violent extremists, conspiracy theorists and madmen. The man presiding over James' case professed bafflement. "Mr. James, I've got to tell you, I'm not sure of why anyone in your position, given the life that you've led, would do this," D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta told him at an April hearing.
If James' decision to leave his family to join an attack on the U.S. Capitol is a mystery, there are clues to what drove him. After his service, and rehabilitation from his injuries, he struggled to rebuild his life. In that, he was not alone. Of the more than 500 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, at least 1 in 10 was a current or former member of the U.S. military, according to a George Washington University analysis. Many had served in the protracted post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, returning home to a country that paid them lip service but moved on without much notice to the wars they had fought.
Over time, James found community in the Oath Keepers, which used the familiar terminology and camaraderie of military life to mobilize vets in support of a variety of right-wing causes. In doing so, prosecutors allege, its members miscast criminality as patriotism. The communications between James and other veterans on Jan. 6 were full of phrases like save the Republic and defend America, according to court filings. Many claimed they had been betrayed by U.S. politicians who were the true enemies of the state. The insurrectionists' grievances were so strong, prosecutors allege, that they took the law into their own hands.
But this view has found strong support across the country. In Arab, where American and Confederate flags compete for space on some front porches with make America great again banners, more than two dozen residents described the events of Jan. 6 to TIME as a legitimate protest over an election they wrongly believed to have been fraudulent. Yes, it got out of hand, they say. But many saw James as a man motivated by love of country, exercising First Amendment rights, who was ensnared in a politicized witch hunt. "I quite frankly believe him to be an American hero," says Rachel Ann Halligan, who lives close to the Jameses in Arab. "The corruption and fraud that is being perpetrated by our government is absurd."
This account is based on interviews with more than two dozen friends, neighbors and community members in Arab; people who knew James through his military service and business dealings; his archived social media posts; and a review of FBI and federal prosecutors' legal filings.
James' guilt or innocence will be determined at trial. Federal prosecutors will present evidence that he violated multiple laws in an insurrection against the country he had sworn to defend.
But the forces that fed James' alleged insurrection may be too deep-rooted to be resolved by the trials. In many communities like Arab, the radical path James took on Jan. 6 seems patriotic rather than criminal; for some, the law itself seems almost a sideshow. "Everyone has the right to stand up for what they believe," says Ramsay Vandergriff, a 38-year-old electrician. "It could easily have been me. It could easily be any of us."
"I'm a normal dude," James tells the camera in a video posted to his wife Audrey's TikTok account in early June. He plants kisses on her cheek and turns back to the grill as she films them in their yard. "Just a normal man," she repeats, punctuating her words with exasperated sighs. "A Purple Heart recipient, veteran, grilling dinner for his family." Audrey tells her new followers that she can't reveal much more; since posting about James' arrest and her family's ordeal, she has gained a sympathetic audience of more than 18,000 on the social app. But the video pans out to show the ankle monitor that has tracked James' movements since April. "The FBI is kind of crazy," she says. "It's unreal every single day." (Both James and his wife declined interviews for this story, citing ongoing court proceedings.) He has pleaded not guilty.
The man in these posts comes across as a devoted dad and husband with a wry sense of humor, who likes fishing, grilling and secretly watching The Golden Girls. He occasionally jumps into Instagram videos advertising Audrey's real estate business. The oldest of six siblings, James grew up in San Jose, Calif., playing football and the guitar. As he approached the end of high school four years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he decided to follow in his uncle's footsteps and enlist in the Army, motivated by the idea of serving his country while also setting up a stable life for himself. Before he deployed to Iraq in March 2007, at the height of the U.S. military surge, he got a tattoo on his right forearm: death before dishonor.
On June 7, the 19-year-old Army private was in the turret of his armored truck outside Baghdad. His eight-man unit had spent hour after eye-glazing hour staring at the arid terrain, hunting for signs of buried roadside bombs. Suddenly the road erupted into a fireball. "A dump truck full of 2,000 lb. of homemade explosives blew the bridge in half that my squad was on," Sergeant David Aleman, the unit's squad leader, tells TIME.
The blast killed three and wounded several others, including Aleman. It rocked James' head and neck, shattering his jaw as the column of a nearby building collapsed on him. Smoke and blood filled James' nostrils. Scrambling in the chaos, someone in the unit managed to radio for medical support. "It is a miracle," Aleman says, "that some of us survived."
For James, the months that followed were a blur of surgeries and physical-therapy sessions, first in Europe and then in Fort Bragg, N.C., before he settled in Florida. His body slowly healed, but he was forced to take medical retirement from the Army, and struggled to adapt to postmilitary life. He suffered from PTSD, anxiety and depression as his personal relationships came under strain, according to legal filings. In 2011, James was charged with prowling when he was found handing out flyers for a moving company in a gated parking lot in Jacksonville. He faced a felony charge of impersonating a law-enforcement officer after police said he falsely claimed he was a member of the military police. The charges were ultimately dropped.
Things finally started falling into place on the night in 2014 when he took Audrey on a first date to a comedy club. She later posted on Facebook that she laughed so loud, she embarrassed him. The two had met years earlier, when Audrey was still married to another soldier and James' jaw was still wired shut. She would later joke to friends that she liked it better that way. They married in 2016.
All the while, James' prior military service remained an important part of his life. He became involved with local chapters of the Oath Keepers in central Florida, whose recruiting materials reminded members that their oath was forever. "America's veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution," says one chapter's mission statement, according to documents reviewed by TIME. "If we can't get the veterans to step up … to save our Republic, then how can we expect to get the rest of our people to do what must be done?"
In September 2017, James traveled to the Florida Keys with members of the group to help disaster-relief efforts after Hurricane Irma devastated the area. He volunteered to drive one of the trucks, delivering pallets of rice and beans. "As Oath Keepers, we are on location helping … by any means necessary," he wrote in a now deleted Instagram post with the hashtags #patriots, #selfless and #forthepeople. Videos posted to YouTube at the time show him standing next to the local chapter's self-professed leader, Kelly Meggs, passing out water bottles to locals.
In 2018, Joshua and Audrey moved their newborn son and Audrey's two children from her previous marriage to her hometown of Arab to be closer to her family. There, he received treatment through Veterans Affairs and launched American Pro Hydro Services, a pressure-washing business that advertises with patriotic red, white and blue logos that it is "veteran-owned."
James also seemed to stay in touch with members of the Oath Keepers back in Florida and make connections with new ones in the region. On social media, his wife referred to James' network of "fellow vets/retired police," seemingly in reference to the Oath Keepers. But with no active chapters near him, James seemed to drift toward right-wing spaces online. His YouTube habits mixed fishing and cooking accounts with a range of far-right conspiracy and survivalist channels. On Pinterest, he saved images of American flags and eagles with quotes like "I have the right to bear arms: your approval is not required." His page included posts linked to sites like Patriot Depot, which advertises "supplies for the conservative revolution," alongside styling ideas for his daughter's hair.
By 2020, even the professional social media presence of the pressure-washing business James had painstakingly built had started to slip. "Invoke the Insurrection ACT NOW!!!" the handle for American Pro Hydro tweeted at Trump in August 2020 in response to the President's tweets about racial-justice protests. The following month, James joined Parler, a largely right-wing social media site, where he followed a slate of conservative figures, accounts like the conspiracy website Infowars and fellow Oath Keepers. "Looking forward to meeting everyone!" he posted on Sept. 8.