On Sunday, a member of the militia occupying an Oregon national park uploaded a video of two members blasting “battle trumpets” in the midst of a snowy landscape.
The militiamen have occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in Burns, Oregon since early January, and have used social media to recruit new members for their cause.
“The battle trumpet has been sounded time to rise!” Blaine Cooper, a watchman for the militia, wrote on Facebook. “Send in the troops to stand with us in Burns, Oregon!”
Trumpets have been a mainstay in the military tradition for most of history, but the ones that the Oregon militiamen used are especially symbolic. They appear to be shofars, a spiral-shaped trumpet traditionally made from ram horns.
The shofar was mentioned a number of times in the Bible as an instrument used to sound battle cries, and some have speculated that the trumpets that brought down the Walls of Jericho were shofars.
