By Brian Terrell
August 25, 2009
On August 9, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, I was one of more than 50 participants of the “Walk for Peace,” a three day, thirty mile march calling for the end of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing home all National Guard troops and the abolition of nuclear weapons, that ended at the gates of Fort McCoy. Fort McCoy is a military training center in Wisconsin from which National Guard units from around the United States are deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nine of us carried our protest onto the base after being warned by the US Army Police not to enter. If our plea for peace was deemed by the Army an “unlawful activity,” we explained, we respectfully could not comply with their order. We were taken into custody, as we expected and each was issued a citation for a federal petty offense requiring us to appear in court at a later date. Five of us were soon released and we four others were further detained, because, it was explained, we had each been apprehended at previous protests at the Fort and we were to be held at the base for US Marshals to transport us to the Dane County Jail in Madison. Except that we had already just been served citations, this was not unusual. We who had more “history” at Fort McCoy were already resigned to the possibility that we might be taken by Marshals to a local jail and held pending an appearance in US District Court, probably the next morning.
