Inside the hangar, we waited our turn for processing on metal bleachers, watched by a video camera mounted near the ceiling. Young camouflage-clad recruits checked computer printout lists for our names, and then separated us into two groups: first timers or recidivists.
As I sat at the table across from a young woman soldier, I watched carefully as she twice ran her finger down an alphabetical list of names. She did not find my name listed there. Despite my insistence that I was, indeed, a recidivist, she directed me to sit on the first-timers bench. I felt a strange mixture of relief and consternation. Clearly this was not in my hands. Within a few hours of our arrests we were released with another five-year exclusion order, signed by Major General John M. Le Moyne, commanding general of Fort Benning.
Back at home I looked more closely at the registered letter I had received after my 1997 crossing. For the first time I notice the clerical error that has led to my reprieve. The exclusionary order was addressed to Ms. Marie Clare — not Clare Marie Hanrahan.
“That’s your guardian angel at work,” my mother said when I told her what happened. It certainly seemed like an amazing grace to me — and an unexpected return of the six months I’d been ready to relinquish to the cause.
The prosecutor dropped the charges on all but 10 of the 65 people arrested that year. US District Court Judge Hugh Lawson sentenced these ten to prison terms of from three months to one year and fines of from $1,000 to $10,000 for their acts of nonviolent dissent. I wrote to each of these prisoners during their incarceration, acutely aware that only a clerical error had spared me from a similar fate.
Home on the Range
I feel a wave of fear and dread at first sight inside the prison barracks. It is stark and devoid of any color or softness. Harsh fluorescent lights glare on the glossy beige paint of cinder- block
walls; the floors are the mottled gray of bare concrete. It feels like
a huge locker room.
The nurse leaves me standing alone as she goes off in search of another officer. I fold my arms across my chest and nervously shift my weight from one foot to the other. My stomach lurches a bit before I remind myself to breathe deeply. While I wait I hum a few lines from the South African freedom song: “It doesn’t matter if they should jail us. We are free and kept alive by hope.”
From where I stand I can see several office cubicles in the center section of the building through narrow windows in the heavy steel double doors. The guard station where I wait is a long semicircular desk at the head of this so-called “living unit,” just across from the swinging half-doors into the shower and toilet rooms. I notice with relief that each toilet stall has an individual door. Such bathroom privacy has not been my experience in the various county jails where I have been held overnight for previous acts of civil disobedience. Beyond the guards’ station I count four rows of cinder-block stalls, fifteen of these cubicles to a row, and in each is a steel bunk bed. The mattresses I can see are neatly covered with green Army blankets. The ceiling is about four feet above the cubicle walls which are only about five feet high. The barracks are quiet. All the other prisoners must be at work somewhere, except for a few women I see sitting outside the bathrooms with brooms and rags in hand.
I can do this, I reassure myself. I’ll be all right.
The guard arrives and directs me to follow her into a small corner room adjacent to the vending machines. A desk, a chair and metal shelves filled with papers and binders crowd the room. There is barely space for the two of us. She pulls a copy of the Alderson Inmate Handbook from the desk drawer and gives it to me. It is a dog-eared, spiral- bound photocopy dated 1998. I flip through it as she watches. It’s about 80 pages of rules, regulations, and sanctions, with lists of inmate rights and responsibilities.
She seems to be sizing me up. Be sure you read this. If you don’t understand anything, ask an officer,” she says. I’m feeling cornered in the narrow room and start to back out, but she isn’t finished with me.
“Ms. Hanerun. Stop. Listen. Don’t take any gifts from anyone here and don’t give anything to another prisoner. If you do what you are told you’ll get along fine.”
She has done this routine countless times before, I’m sure. As I listen, I’m reminded of some of the hundreds of women who I interviewed before offering them a bed in the homeless shelter I once managed. I hope my manner with them was less intimidating than I’m feeling now.
“Do you smoke?” she asks.
“No, I don’t.”
“Good,” she says. “That will keep you out of trouble in the smoke shacks.”
“Any questions?”
“No, not yet.” I reply.
“All right. Follow me; I’ll show you your bed.” She leads me to my cell: cubicle number 042, about three-quarters of the way down the narrow corridor at the far end of the barracks.
“Take the top bunk,” she says. "You’ll have a roommate soon enough. Don’t leave until the count is cleared. You’ll hear the Powerhouse whistle blow.” Then she is gone.
There are no bars, not even a door to close — just a narrow opening in the five-foot high wall. I measure the space. It is nine steps across in my over-large shoes and 13 paces long to a waisthigh, narrow window looking out on a green field and past small garden plots to a wooded hill.
I survey my furnishings. The thin mattress on the narrow bed is covered in pale-green plastic. It has a UNICOR label, the trade name for Federal Prison Industries, Inc. I later learn that UNICOR is a whollyowned government corporation that employs imprisoned people throughout the federal system as another means of inmate management.
My bed is nearly level with the top of the cubicle wall. There is a short metal locker and a metal folding chair in the corner. The desk is a bolted-to-the-wall metal shelf with a stool that swings out on a hinged arm. An empty cork bulletin board hangs over the desk.
I sit down on the stool with my back to the corridor and look out the narrow window. I didn’t expect a window in my cell. This raises my spirits. I know that these are the Allegheny Mountains that surround me here and that the lovely Greenbrier River flows past just outside the boundaries of this prison camp. I’m very grateful for these few moments alone to gather my thoughts as the reality of my circumstances begins to take hold.
Repeatedly I made the choice to risk arrest. It is a part of the prevailing strategy of the SOA Watch movement to support civil disobedience and to keep the issue before the court and, with our testimony, to put the SOA itself on trial. Now here I am in prison. I can only hope that my time here will do some good.
