Standing in Support
Fort Benning, November 22, 1998
The call to gather in protest at Fort Benning each year is but one of many appeals for action in the densely-militarized southeastern US. Calls have come from Kings Bay, Georgia, home port of the deadly Trident nuclear submarines; from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, site of a nuclear-bomb assembly factory; from opponents of toxic tritium production at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina; and from Cape Canaveral, where the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space worked to counter the militarization of the heavens.
As the November gathering at Fort Benning approached, I asked myself hard questions: If I cross this line again, is it because I cannot, in good conscience, do otherwise, or do I feel obligated to cross simply as a duty to this movement? Will my conscience rest easy if I do not risk arrest?
I knew that the decision to break the law again would have to come from a place within me so deeply rooted in the sense of right action that the strength of my resolve would carry me through the consequences. I lived with the indecision for months as I grappled with my fear of the higher risk of imprisonment. It was not until the morning of the gathering that I finally reached a decision. I was relieved to discover that I could remain on the “legal” side of the boundary in good conscience and still serve the cause of justice. This clarity was due thanks to the wise counsel of friends, including Robert Randall, my colleague on the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, and my good neighbor Kathleen, both of whom crossed the line that year.
The decision not to risk arrest in 1998 gave me the opportunity to serve my friends in the vital role of a supporter — a role that has been somewhat foreign to my impetuous, risk-taking temperament. It also freed me to act as a witness and reporter of the action. I published an account of the vigil in Asheville’s weekly paper, the Mountain Xpress, bringing the SOA Watch movement to the awareness of many thousands of local readers.
“If what you believe doesn’t cost you anything, you have to question its value,” Martin Sheen, told the gathering that year. Describing himself as a "nonviolent Catholic,” the award-winning actor and star of the television series The West Wing, joined 2,318 others who crossed the line. To the surprise of many, the Army made no arrests. They were overwhelmed, perhaps, by the numbers. Instead, the police loaded everyone onto waiting school buses and released them in a nearby park.
"Camp Cupcake”
A pleasant-looking middle-aged guard with a direct gaze and a jocular manner shows me to a seat. He identifies himself as the “acting intake counselor.” As he pages through my file he looks up to comment on the charge: “Illegal re-entry onto a military base — Fort Benning.”
“You’re not one of those Plowshares activists, are you?” he asks, a faint smile playing across his face.
“No,” I say: “I was protesting the US Army School of the
Americas. I crossed the line to demand that it be shut down. The
graduates are involved in torture, murder, and massacre in Latin
America.” I pause, then continue. “I’m a political prisoner, but I’m
not ready to do the long, hard time the Plowshares activists usually get. I’m here on a misdemeanor trespass conviction.”
“I did a little time at Fort Benning myself,” he says, “and I saw
the TV news about your protest.”
“Then you must know about the School of the Americas and why I’m here?” I say. “How long have you worked at Alderson?"
He laughs. “Nineteen years.” He pauses, as if awaiting my response, and then closes the file as he stands. “I guess you’re safe enough to be housed with the general population.” Then, as if to reassure me, he echoes the sentiment of the guard I just left: This is not such a bad place. Prison can be a whole lot worse than Alderson. They call this place ‘Camp Cupcake.’ ”
Such a genial guy for a prison guard, I think as I follow him into the adjacent room.
“When you finish with the nurse she’ll take you over to your housing unit,” he says as he leaves.
In another cramped office I sit across the desk from a plump young woman in a pink smock and casual civilian dress. After I answer her routine questions about my health history, she pricks the skin on my arm for a TB test.
“I’ll come find you to check that in a few days,” she says.“Come with me now, I’ll drive you over to your housing unit.” She offers me a front seat in the white station wagon.
We drive past more vintage brick buildings then up to and around another broad expanse of lawn flanked by tall trees. The nurse parks in front of a new two-story barracks. The outside facade resembles a “stretch” version of a college dorm. It has four entrances, two on the first floor, and two more at the top of each stairway on the concrete porches.
"You’re assigned to Range One,” she says. “That’s Range Two on the left,” she points. “Three and Four are up the stairs. You’re only allowed in your own housing unit,’ she warns. “The others are off-limits.”
I follow her through the double doors of Range One into the massive red brick structure.
A “High-Risk” Action
Fort Benning, November 21, 1999
To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the massacre at the Jesuit
University in San Salvador, SOA Watch organizers published a
call for an escalation of the resistance with what they called a “highrisk”
action. They asked for 100 volunteers. With little of the
hesitation that had troubled me the previous year, I signed up.
On November 21, 1999, twelve thousand people gathered at the gates of Fort Benning. As the traditional funeral procession began, I was in the first group to cross over the line. We wore black shrouds and covered our faces with a white death mask. I carried a bouquet of herbs from my garden: sage for clearing, rosemary for remembrance, lemon balm for calming, and Mexican marigold to honor the beauty of the people of Latin America, who bear sorrow and confront injustice with astounding courage. Others carried white crosses with the names of SOA victims or shouldered cardboard coffins, each filled with thousands of petitions calling for the School’s closure. About one-half mile inside the boundaries we fell at the feet of the Georgia state troopers who stood in our way. Feigning death by massacre we lay on the ground in the hot Georgia sun awaiting arrest.
Martin Sheen crossed again that year and continued to lead the procession forward despite being splashed with blood by an unidentified assailant who rushed out from a wooded area as we crossed into the base. Jesuit priest and revolutionary poet Daniel Berrigan was also among the 4,408 persons who risked arrest that day in the largest US demonstration of dissent since the Vietnam War protests.
From my place on the ground I watched through the death mask as thousands of mourners, five abreast, walked forward into the Army base. Tears were streaming down the faces of many of them. The midday sun was hot, and perspiration beaded up under my mask. But golden leaves still clung to the trees, the sky was a deep, vast blue, and the ground felt holy as I lay in the company of so many others taking personal risks to speak truth to those in power.
We waited on the grounds for hours. Eventually the police led, carried, or dragged sixty-five nonviolent resisters to the waiting buses. They continued to ignore thousands of others who had crossed the line behind us. Eventually some of these agreed to board a waiting bus and were released off base. Another 500 refused. They remained inside the Fort Benning boundary, sitting down to block the entrance road for another five hours, before marching back through the gate to the cheers of a waiting crowd.
The gray buses wound their way through Fort Benning bringing the 65 of us to an aircraft hanger at the Lawson Army Airfield which was inside the sprawling military reservation. I was certain that my disregard of the five-year exclusionary order from 1997 would mark me for prosecution. I was at peace with the possibility of prison time.
