That day, William Todd Wilson, a military veteran and one of Rhodes' acolytes, dutifully stored a rifle, a pistol, 200 rounds of ammunition, body armor, and a camouflaged uniform in his hotel room before heading to the U.S. Capitol, according to Wilson's account of that day included in court documents released Wednesday.

The arsenal was to be retrieved 'if called upon to do so' -- a directive that would have come from Rhodes, according to the filing, the man who built his militia on the recruitment of current and former service members and their subsequent allegiance to him.

The recruitment pitch, often peppered with military jargon, was grounded in cryptic descriptions of Rhodes' own military service and a warped interpretation of the military's core ethos, painting the militia leader as a grizzled veteran keen to take up arms to defend his view of America.

But a copy of his Army retirement paperwork reviewed by Military.com reveals previously undisclosed details about Rhodes ' career that show a soldier who served quietly and relatively unremarkably, despite the central role his military career plays in the fabric of the Oath Keepers. He was honorably separated from the Army after serving two years and seven months on active duty, leaving at the rank of specialist with a 'temporary' physical disability, according to the document.

The Jan. 6 plot that his group hatched, as outlined in federal charges that have led to three guilty pleas from other Oath Keepers, leaned heavily on what they believed were elite military tactics. Militia members stored weapons across Northern Virginia, and 'quick reaction force' teams were ready to storm the Capitol on Rhodes ' orders. The court report referenced the Oath Keepers ' use of a 'stack' method, a military room-clearing formation that experts have pointed to as evidence of the Oath Keepers ' inflated sense of capability.

Over half of the Oath Keepers arrested that January -- including Rhodes -- had prior military service, something that Rhodes actively sought in public recruiting pitches that leaned on his own background.

'We need prior military, LEO, security professionals, skilled martial artists, emergency medical, communications, and intelligence personnel,' wrote Rhodes in an archived blog post titled 'Oath Keepers Deploying to DC to Protect Events, Speakers, & Attendees on Jan 5-6: Time to Stand!' posted two days before the attack on the Capitol.

'On your feet!' he wrote in November 2020 in a call to march on D.C. after the 2020 presidential election. 'Stand up, hook up, check equipment ... and shuffle to the door my brothers and sisters,' he added -- a reference to airborne military procedures, ones he experienced himself more than three decades ago. He signed off the blog post, in part, as both 'Founder of Oath Keepers' and 'U.S. Army Airborne disabled veteran.'

Those messages were consistent with Rhodes' angle since founding the Oath Keepers in 2009. He used prior military service, including his own, as a rallying call to his members, actively recruiting veterans, requesting their own military records, and instilling a quasi-military culture in his acolytes by requiring militia members to take a reinterpreted version of the military oath of enlistment -- the result of which led many to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Tasha Adams, Rhodes' estranged wife, said in an interview that, when she met Rhodes in 1991, five years after he was separated from the Army, he was assertive and intelligent, but unsatisfied with how short his military career was.

So far, six of the 11 January arrestees tied to the Oath Keepers plot have confirmed military service, consistent with the militia's propensity to recruit military and law enforcement veterans. Rhodes even requests a DD-214 -- an official document that gives a summary of a service member's time in uniform -- from potential recruits, according to the Oath Keepers' website.

Andrew Mines, a research fellow at The George Washington University 's Program on Extremism who focuses on those with military experience at the Capitol insurrection, told Military.com 'the legitimacy that he brings to the movement when he tries to claim the prestige of our military is definitely outsized.'

Rhodes entered active duty on June 28, 1983, according to his own DD-214, reviewed by Military.com. During his service, he earned his parachutist badge; an Army Service Ribbon indicating he had completed his basic and initial training as an airborne infantryman; and two Army Achievement Medals, the most basic award 'for meritorious service or achievement while serving in a non-combat area,' according to military regulation.

He earned a 'sharpshooter' qualification on the M16, the Army 's primary rifle at the time of Rhodes ' enlistment. Sharpshooter indicates that Rhodes successfully shot anywhere from 30 to 35 targets out of 40 potential targets on a controlled range, the middlemost qualification for the Army 's rifle testing.

Mines told Military.com that militia groups often base their credibility on being tactically elite, with observers tending to 'fixate' on alleged skills, but 'when you talk to folks with a military background, it 's really run-of-the-mill stuff. There 's no 'wow factor ' there.'

Rhodes separated from the Army in 1986. His record also notes almost eight months of 'inactive service,' which could indicate time in the National Guard or Reserve components but does not state so explicitly.

The record characterizes his separation as a retirement, but it does not state the specific incident that caused his separation, nor does it indicate which veterans benefits, if any, he received because of it. The record is unsigned by Rhodes, but shows his name, date of birth and Social Security number.

By Rhodes ' account, he joined the Army out of high school, according to an archived biography on the Oath Keepers ' website, which has served as the basis for most public knowledge about his service. Rhodes attended basic and initial paratrooper training while stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and then Fort Lewis, Washington, where he was 'disabled in a rough terrain parachuting accident during a night jump,' according to the biography. That biography didn 't detail how long Rhodes served.

One of Rhodes ' lawyers, Jon Moseley, confirmed the Oath Keepers founder 's length of service and that he was separated in January 1986 after a training accident. Between 1986 and1989, he was going through the 'bureaucracy' of getting disability benefits, of which his lawyer says he received 50%, but was not actively serving. Rhodes formally received his discharge paperwork in 1989. Moseley also said that Rhodes failed the Special Forces Qualification Course after the first week.

Moseley, who was disbarred in Virginia last month, told Military.com that he is still Rhodes ' lawyer, but as his case is 'in transition' from hearings by Congress ' Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol to his criminal defense, Moseley 's involvement has decreased. Phillip Linder and James Lee Bright are now taking the lead in defending Rhodes.

Linder confirmed that Moseley 's status on the team is 'in flux,' adding 'I think he will not be on the team as it gets closer to trial.' Linder did not respond to Military.com 's request for any additions or corrections to Moseley 's January 2022 statements about Rhodes ' military record.

Moseley said that during his testimony to the Jan. 6 Committee in January, Rhodes was asked whether he was specifically recruiting military veterans and active-duty service members. He replied, 'No, they come to us.'

As part of his plea agreement tied to his role in the plan, Wilson submitted court documents Wednesday alleging that Rhodes had tried to reach then-President Donald Trump after the riot at the Capitol began.

'Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,' the filing said. 'This individual denied Rhodes 's request to speak directly with President Trump.'

When asked whether Rhodes was overselling his military service in comparison to how pertinent it seems to the Oath Keepers, Moseley said 'he would reject the idea that his military service was a necessary part of what they did.'

Mines, the extremism researcher, is unsurprised at Rhodes ' military record -- in his research he 's studied extremists with both long and short careers. But for Rhodes, he says, 'it just speaks to how easy it is for folks to transform their experiences into broader cults of personalities that end up building these movements.'

Mines emphasized that 'it 's not anyone 's place to say you can 't build something [off your service] and your records being pretty sparse,' in reference to Rhodes ' relatively short service and how he used it to build the Oath Keepers -- in comparison to, say, veterans using their experience for employment opportunities.

She noted that the Oath Keepers 'actually made a little bit of sense when it first started,' alluding to the premise of continuing service to the Constitution out of uniform. But now, specifically after the insurrection at the Capitol, she says that the Oath Keepers 'betrayed' their original purpose.

UZHHOROD, Ukraine (AP) Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mothers Day meeting with first lady Olena Zelenska to show U.S. support for the embattled nation as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.

I wanted to come on Mothers Day, the U.S. first lady told Zelenska. I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine.

Zelenska thanked Biden for her courageous act and said, We understand what it takes for the U.S. first lady to come here during a war when military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day -- even today.

The two first ladies came together in a small classroom, sitting across a table from one another and greeting each other in front of reporters before they met in private. Zelenska and her children have been at an undisclosed location for their safety.

President Joe Biden said during his visit to Poland in March that he was disappointed he could not visit Ukraine to see conditions firsthand but that he was not allowed, likely due to security reasons. The White House said as recently as last week that the president would love to visit but there were no plans for him to do so at this time.

The meeting came about after the two first ladies exchanged correspondence in recent weeks, according to U.S. officials who declined to provide further details because they were not authorized to discuss the ladies private communications.

As she arrived at the school, Biden, who was wearing a Mothers Day corsage that was a gift from her husband, embraced Zelenska and presented her with a bouquet. After their private meeting, the two joined a group of children who live at the school in making tissue-paper bears to give as Mothers Day gifts.

Bidens visit follows recent stops in the war-torn country by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress, as well as a joint trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

Her visit was limited to western Ukraine; Russia is concentrating its military power in eastern Ukraine, and she was not in harms way. On the same day as Biden 's visit, a Russian bomb flattened a school in eastern Ukraine that had been sheltering about 90 people in its basement, with dozens feared dead. Also Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Ukraine to meet with the president and 'reaffirm Canadas unwavering support for the Ukrainian people, according to his office.

Earlier, in the Slovakian border village of Vysne Nemecke, she toured its border processing facility, surveying operations set up by the United Nations and other relief organizations to assist Ukrainians seeking refuge. Biden attended a religious service in a tent set up as a chapel, where a priest intoned, We pray for the people of Ukraine.

And before that, in Kosice, Biden met and offered support to Ukrainian mothers in Slovakia who have been displaced by Russias war. She assured them that the hearts of the American people are behind them.

At a bus station in the city that is now a 24-hour refugee processing center, Biden found herself in an extended conversation with a Ukrainian woman who said she struggles to explain the war to her three children because she cannot understand it herself.

The 24-hour facility is one of six refugee centers in Slovakia, providing an average of 300 to 350 people daily with food, showers, clothing, emergency on-site accommodations and other services, according to information provided by the White House.

In recent weeks border crossings are averaging less than 2,000 per day, down from over 10,000 per day immediately after Russias invasion on Feb. 24, and a large portion of that flow is daily cross border traffic.

Eleanor Roosevelt visited servicemen abroad during World War II to help boost troop morale. Pat Nixon joined President Richard Nixon on his 1969 trip to South Vietnam, becoming the first first lady to visit a combat zone, according to the National First Ladies Library. She flew 18 miles from Saigon in an open helicopter, accompanied by U.S. Secret Service agents.

Hillary Clinton visited a combat zone, stopping in Bosnia in 1996. Four years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Laura Bush went to Kabul in 2005 and Melania Trump accompanied President Donald Trump to Iraq in December 2018.

What is martial law? While there is no universal definition, the term often refers to the use of the military for law enforcement. But contrary to popular belief, simply calling up federal or state military members to assist during times of natural emergency or civil unrest is not necessarily the same thing as implementing martial law.

While not specifically defined in the U.S. Constitution, many legal experts consider martial law to be the use of military personnel to dramatically assist or completely replace a nation's normal legal system in times of emergency. Whether any given use of the military rises to the level of martial law is tied to exactly how much military support or action is used.

Under total martial law, the normal American law enforcement and legal system is replaced by a stricter set of laws and punishments that is completely controlled by the military or executive branch of the government. The normal checks and balances system built into the Constitution is suspended.

Though debated in some legal discussions, martial law can also occur in stages, without ever getting to total takeover by the military. Under current U.S. law, the president, Congress or a local military commander may impose degrees of martial law under specific situations.

All told, martial law has been declared in the U.S. about 68 times, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. Most of those 68 cases of federal troops being deployed within the U.S. borders involved labor unrest (29 times), and those 68 invocations of martial law have resulted in about 33 separate legal challenges to the declaration. Martial law was last officially declared in the U.S. in 1963.

Martial law has twice been implemented nationally by a president during wartime, first by Abraham Lincoln in border states between the North and South during the Civil War, and then again by local military officials in Hawaii during World War II. This was later approved and expanded by Franklin Roosevelt's executive order to include the incarceration of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast. Both martial law declarations were challenged in court, and both times, the courts ended up ruling that at least a portion of those implementations were unconstitutional or too broadly applied.

In several examples of martial law -- such as when President George W. Bush placed foreign detainees in a prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, outside of U.S. court jurisdiction and was later overruled by the Supreme Court, or a loophole in current law that gave President Donald Trump control of all D.C. National Guard troops deployed to the district during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol -- Congress and the courts have usually reacted swiftly and strongly to any domestic military deployments. Since martial law sidesteps the constitutional division of powers and grants additional, emergency powers to the executive branch, such events do not usually sit well with the other branches of government.

Two laws enacted as the result of previous actions include the Insurrection Act and the Posse Comitatus Act. Both are now widely used in emergency situations, even though their constitutionality is still often called into question more than 100 years after they were enacted. The Insurrection Act spells out the only times that federal forces may be used in a domestic role while the Posse Comitatus Act limits their use in those circumstances.

Federal troops can be used to enforce law and order without an official declaration of martial law. In the U.S., they have been utilized at least 14 times under the Insurrection Act before the 1990s and 23 times since 1992 under the Posse Comitatus Act, according to the Congressional Research Service.

In 1932, President Herbert Hoover famously directed the military to clear protesting veterans and their families from an encampment near the U.S. Capitol, where they were protesting delays in payments of their war bonus. Douglas MacArthur and George Patton were both involved in the operation, which involved tanks and soldiers with fixed bayonets clearing a camp full of veterans and their families. It did not sit well in the court of public opinion.

The Posse Comitatus Act, first enacted in 1878, basically prohibits federal forces from assisting in domestic law enforcement unless the president has directed operations under the Insurrection Act or related laws. It is the legal precedent in use during most military involvements in civilian activities today.

It was originally enacted as both a reaction to Lincoln's invocation of martial law during the Civil War to use military courts to try civilians, and to protect freed slaves from mistreatment in the newly liberated post-secession states.

The act allows military personnel to only assist civilian police in enforcing existing laws, while granting authority for the federal government to ensure federal rights are unilaterally provided and enforced nationwide.

Most state constitutions allow for the state's government to mobilize their National Guard troops in a law enforcement activity within their state. States often also have agreements with each other that allow troop deployments to neighboring states during emergencies. When serving in either a state or Title 32 status, typically reserved for activations around natural disasters, Guard members may enforce their state's laws.

Normally, active-duty troops may only perform domestic duties related to national defense. That includes such things like counterterrorism, drug interdiction or dealing with weapons of mass destruction. If a situation exists that requires the military to serve in a law enforcement role, it must be authorized in writing by the president or, in an emergency, by the local military commander.

Federal troops acting under the Posse Comitatus Act are limited to only performing the duties of a deputized posse to assist civilian police in enforcing existing laws. In fact, the military is severely limited in exactly what duties it may perform when assisting civilian police, rules spelled out in DoD Instruction 3025.21. Army Doctrine ADP 3-28 also details defense support of civilian authorities.

Local military commanders also have the authority to temporarily deploy federal troops to keep the order during large-scale unexpected civil disturbances that threaten order or may cause significant loss of life or destruction of property.

Law enforcement support during martial law falls into two broad categories: direct and indirect. Direct support involves enforcing the law and engaging in physical contact with offenders. Indirect support consists of aid to civilian law enforcement agencies, but not enforcement of the law or direct contact with offenders.

Military members in a Title 10 federal activation status may not be involved in direct civilian law enforcement activities unless expressly authorized by the president, U.S. constitution or act of Congress. There are very specific rules for use of force by military personnel.

Laws even exist preventing DoD from using unmanned aircraft systems (drones) to assist civil authorities without specific approval from the secretary of defense and preventing troops from conducting any operations at a polling place unless it is necessary to 'repel armed enemies of the United States.'

While the executive branch of the government may often rely on the military to assist civilian law enforcement, Congress and the judicial branch tend to frown upon these actions and, depending on the situation, move to prevent that from happening. For example: see Rasul v. Bush.

'Our system of government is the antithesis of total military rule, and its founders are not likely to have contemplated complete military dominance within the limits of a territory made a part of this country.'

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