At 7:30 am Sunday, October 6, 2002, remembering the anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, three women entered Minuteman III missile silo # N-8 in northern Colorado. Acting out Isaiah's prophesy, "they shall beat their swords into plowshares," Dominican sisters Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson and Ardeth Platte hammered on the concrete silo lid and the tracks that carry the lid to its firing position. Their disarmament action included cutting cables, spreading their own blood in the sign of the cross on the silo and the tracks, and cutting through the surrounding fence in three places. The women were inside the silo area for an hour, able to also complete a liturgy on top of the silo before they were ringed with humvees and military and police personnel with weapons leveled.
The sisters were dressed in mop-up suits used by toxic clean up crews, with Disarmament Specialists written on the front and CWIT (Citizen Weapons Inspection Team) in big letters across the back. They were arrested and are currently being held in a Colorado jail.
From the Baltimore Independent Media Center
There are those of us who do our work for peace by marching in freezing weather, or calling our senators and representatives, by writing letters to the editor, or organizing peace groups of one kind or another. Maybe we put an antiwar sign in our front yard, or pin an antiwar button to our coat, or speak openly about our opposition to war in conversations with persons who disagree with us. All these "pieces of the peace" are worthy and necessary. But there are those few who go beyond anything the rest of us could imagine, those who put their lives on the line--cross the line, actually--and perform acts of civil disobedience that invite arrest. For some, this takes the form of sitting in the middle of a street with members of their affinty group, arms locked, blocking the street as best they can. In these cases they might be pelted with tear gas, pepper spray, high-power water hoses, police batons, rubber bullets, beaten or kicked, dragged away, and/or thrown in jail. Sometimes, as has been happening lately at antiwar protests, the police might ignore their attempts to be arrested and just let them be. You never know exactly what will happen when you choose civil disobedience as your path to peace.
But there are three women who DID know what would happen when they chose their nonviolent actions for peace. Srs. Carol Gilbert, OP, Ardeth Platte, OP, and Jackie Hudson, OP, were well aware when they entered that missile silo in the Colorado desert on October 6, 2002, that they would be imprisoned for years. The latest word I have is that it could be up to 30 years!
Why do they do it? How could they dare to do it? And what good will it do for these three nuns to end their lives in prison this way? Will it change the course of world events? Do people even know they've done this action and are being held in a jail in Colorado?
I can't answer these questions. But when I think of Carol, Ardeth and Jackie, I think of Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and countless other persons who have faced unknowable consequences of actions taken for the benefit of all. These are the heroes, the martyrs, the beacons of hope whose light shines far beyond their own time and place. Sisters Carol, Ardeth and Jackie have spent many years in jail for earlier nonviolent actions of resistance to the US production and use of nuclear weapons; this is their mission, their call, if you will. You can read about them on the Dominican Life web site. And if you want to do an important work for peace, you could write these women as they spend day after day, month after month, and year after year in jail. That is what I did today (January 24, 2003). Their address is:
Sr. Carol Gilbert, OP
Sr. Ardeth Platte, OP
Sr. Jackie Hudson, OP
P.O. Box 518
Georgetown, CO 80444