The Nuclear Resister

Clowns en marche for Nuclear France – photo by desobeir.net

On August 8, about fifteen “clowns-in-reverse” demonstrated in front of the headquarters of La République En Marche, the new political party of French President Macron. “We came to thank him, because the war is a lot better than the Treaty!” said the Chief of Staff of the Clown Armies. Under a super-sized inflated bomb, the clowns celebrated “Jupiterian France” for opposing with all its might the introduction of the international treaty to ban nuclear weapons. They were soon joined by some fifty men in blue who forcibly expelled the clowns from the building and detained them, recording their identities before they were released.

Photo by Bob Thawley, taken in San Francisco, March 19, 2017

William Coligny Doub II

San Francisco, Spring 2017. Several years into worsening dementia, Bill listened to a recording of Pete Seeger singing Little Boxes. The lyrics include:

And the people in the houses all go to the university
And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same
And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers
And business executives
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same

After the song ended there was a pause.  Then Bill declared: “Not me, baby!”

Bill “Terry” Doub died peacefully in San Francisco the evening of August 3, 2017, with his daughter and her family singing a gentle chant of passage:  

Photo by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

from Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

Activists blockaded the West Coast nuclear submarine base that would likely carry out a nuclear strike against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) should President Donald Trump give the order.

Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, just 20 miles from Seattle, is home to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the U.S. More than 1,300 nuclear warheads are deployed on Trident D-5 missiles on the eight ballistic missile submarines based at Bangor or stored at Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWFPAC) at the Bangor base.

Jerry Zawada on March 6, 2016 at Pacific Life Community gathering, Photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

There was a peace vigil to honor the life of Fr. Jerry Zawada on Monday, November 13 at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona, followed by a celebration of his life (photos, readings, etc. are posted here).

Fr. Jerry Zawada OFM – nuclear resister, peace and justice activist, Franciscan friar – died on the morning of July 25 at the age of 80. Jerry served his early years as a Franciscan priest in the Philippines, and later worked with the homeless, war refugees and survivors of torture in Chicago, Milwaukee, Mexico, Las Vegas, Tucson and elsewhere. Jerry was imprisoned for two years in the late 1980s for repeated trespass at nuclear missile silos in the midwest; served three six-month prison sentences (2001, 2003, 2005) for trespass at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia, and two months in prison in 2007 after crossing the line to protest torture training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.  A few years ago, his advocacy for and celebration of mass with women priests earned a disciplinary letter from the Vatican.

He never stopped standing up and speaking out for a peaceful, just and nuclear-free world, even when in recent years he slowed down physically and wasn’t quite sure how fast his legs would carry him.  His life will remain an example and inspiration to so many – those who knew and loved him, and those he never had an opportunity to meet.