The Nuclear Resister

Occupy Beale AFB photo

Organizing Notes

by Bruce Gagnon

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Seven of the 11 activists who gathered at the Wheatland gate of Beale Air Force Base, California around 6:00 a.m. this morning were arrested for protesting the Global Hawk drone mission of the base. At 7:15 a.m. the group was handcuffed and taken inside the base for processing, where we were each cited for trespassing on a federal installation and released about 90 minutes later. Just prior to being arrested, the seven of us blocked a long line of morning incoming traffic for about 20 minutes before crossing over the white line onto base property.

A Brief Account of Our Collective Arrest at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Sunday, March 6

[On Sunday, March 6, as part of the Pacific Life Community’s action in front of California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, a number of PLC’ers were arrested for “crossing the line” onto Vandenberg Air Force Base. The following is a brief account of the action written by Elizabeth Murray, who was arrested on trespass charges along with Charley Smith, Ed Ehmke, Mary Jane Parrine, Jorge Manly-Gil, Karan Benton and Tom Webb.]

We walked together, arm in arm, as one line toward the row of soldiers barring our entrance to Vandenberg Base. A few yards from the soldiers lineup, we paused; Charlie, whom we had selected to be our representative, advanced alone right up to the troops to offer our letter to Col. Moss. He asked several times for someone to come forward to receive our letter to the base commander, but our request was met by stone-still silence.

From Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Camp Douglas, WI — On February 23, two peace activists with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Brian Terrell and Kathy Kelly, were arrested when they attempted to deliver a loaf of bread and a letter to drone operators at Volk Field, an Air National Guard Base in Wisconsin which trains pilots to operate Shadow Drones over other countries. Voices activists have lived alongside ordinary people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Gaza. People who can’t flee from drone surveillance and attacks have good reason to fear people from the U.S., but instead they have broken bread with Kelly and Terrell and have welcomed opportunities for deepened mutual understanding. Kelly and Terrell carried the loaf of bread to signify the worth of relying on words rather than weapons.

by Bob Smith

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 18, at Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania was cold, terribly cold. It was one for the Brandywine Peace Community record books. We thought that for anyone who could risk the cold, there needed to be something at the world’s chief war profiteer in honor of Dr. King’s message of nonviolent action and resistance for justice and peace. So as we have every year since 1977, we stood holding banners and signs for Dr. King and his message. About 20 people were there as the loudspeaker boomed the words of Dr. King. We had decided to cut our memorial with music and more in half.

Jerry Berrigan, Presente!

from The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars

On Thursday morning, January 28, thirty life sized cutouts of Syracuse peacemaker Jerry Berrigan blockaded the main entrance of Hancock Air National Guard Base outside Syracuse, NY. The cutouts were accompanied by twelve nonviolent drone resisters, who were arrested after blockading for an hour and a half. See video (of the blockade and arrests).

Jerry Berrigan, who died on July 26, 2015 at the age of 95, dedicated his entire life – like his brothers Dan and Phil – to Jesus’ command to love one another, Jerry came to the base on a bi-weekly basis whenever he was able, in his words, “to remind the base commander of our government’s pledge under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, a treaty to safeguard non-combatant’s well-being in any warzone in which U.S. forces are engaged in combat.” And further, “to register horror and indignation at reports of bombing missions by drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan which resulted in the deaths of many innocent civilians; men, women and children.”