Listen to Oregon Militiamen Sound Their Battle Trumpets

By Jonathan Zhou
Jonathan Zhou
Jonathan Zhou
Jonathan Zhou is a tech reporter who has written about drones, artificial intelligence, and space exploration.
January 19, 2016Updated: January 19, 2016

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. 

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“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.