A fair amount of antiwar writing offers graphic depictions of war, the goal being by such depictions to lead readers to oppose the horrors they are reading about. Such texts can be hard to read, the depiction of horrors nearly unbearable. None of them, though, in this anthology or anywhere else, is harder for me to bear than Brian Willson’s direct, devastating account of having his legs crushed beneath an oncoming military train, on September 1, 1987, outside the Naval Weapons Station in Concord, California. Willson and other Veterans for Peace were on the tracks to protest U.S. military intervention in El Salvador and Nicaragua. They had notified all relevant personnel of their intention, and presumed that the train would stop. It did not; Willson ultimately lost both legs below the knees and suffered severe damage to his right frontal lobe. He sued the government and train crew; in a settlement, he was awarded $920,000. He later said the incident had given him “third world legs,” deepening his sense of solidarity with those he had been attempting to defend; his account of it, On Third World Legs, appeared in 1992.
Willson (b. 1941) served in Vietnam, left the Air Force as a captain, became a member of Veterans for Peace, attended law school at American University. He held a variety of positions, among them some promising political ones, including one on Senator John Kerry’s veterans’ advisory committee. But he was also studying, and reacting with great intensity to, American policies in Latin America and elsewhere; he was thus moving gradually but inexorably toward a more radical opposition to American foreign policy, which led him to the Veterans Fast for Life action in 1986 and to the Concord train tracks that day in 1987. Since his injury he has been no less active, writing two memoirs and undertaking a documentary about the Korean War, working on permaculture projects and with numerous local organizations in Portland, Oregon, where he lives.
A RELATIVE of mine had been a young military officer who served with the United States prosecution team at Nuremburg. The chief United States prosecutor there, Justice Robert H. Jackson, grew up in the Jamestown, New York area, a few miles from Ashville. Upon signing the London Agreement of 1945 creating the International Military Tribunal, Jackson stated: “For the first time, four of the most powerful nations have agreed not only upon the principle of liability for war crimes of persecution, but also upon the principle of individual responsibility for the crime of attacking international peace.”
When I returned from Nicaragua in the late spring of 1987, a number of friends and I decided to try to interdict the flow of arms from the United States to Central America. Charlie Liteky and I put out a leaflet in which we called for “thousands of people to participate in sustained strategic actions in the United States to block the flow of arms to Nicaragua.” Later a group of us organized Nuremburg Actions at the Concord Naval Weapons Station in California.
The Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS), at Port Chicago about thirty five miles northeast of San Francisco, is the largest munitions depot on the West Coast. Its bunkers store a variety of bombs and munitions, including nuclear weapons. Many of these means of war are transported by train and truck from storage areas to the pier, for shipment by boat to their destinations. The train, consisting of a locomotive pulling box cars, has to pass through an area open to public use on its way from one piece of government property to the other.
During the Vietnam War, anti-war activists blocked both trains and trucks in the Bay Area. Members of the Berkeley Vietnam Day Committee sat down on the tracks in front of trains carrying soldiers bound for Vietnam. There were four such blockades in August 1965 alone. In May 1966, four women in San Jose blocked trucks loaded with napalm bombs for seven hours outside a trucking company. When they returned to the same location the next day, a truck driver told them that the company had decided to stop bringing napalm through that point. The women then moved on to an enormous bomb storage facility in nearby Alviso. There they had some success in delaying the loading of bombs onto barges for transit to Port Chicago. Marches, lengthy vigils, and frequent blocking of trains and trucks also occurred throughout the Vietnam War at CNWS itself.*
We decided to revive the historic Bay Area focus on the Concord Naval Weapons Station. We had a copy of a contract with the government of El Salvador (procured through the Freedom of Information Act) disclosing that a number of bombs, white phosphorus rockets, and other munitions had been shipped to El Salvador from CNWS in June 1985. I had learned of substantial bombings of villages in El Salvador during my trips to Nicaragua and El Salvador. An item in the July 1987 Harper’s indicated that 230 Salvadoran villages had been bombed or strafed by the Salvadoran Air Force in 1986. This behavior is a grotesque violation of international law. Furthermore, I had spent time with Eugene Hasenfus, both on a visit to the crash site and while he was imprisoned in Nicaragua in November 1986, and learned of the air drop routes used to transport United States military supplies from bases in El Salvador to the contras in Nicaragua. (Hasenfus, a Wisconsin native and ex-Marine in Vietnam, had previously participated in secret missions over Southeast Asia for the CIA-owned airline, Air America. He was caught red-handed in October 1986 dropping supplies from the United States to contra terrorists in the interior of Nicaragua when the secret plane he was on was shot down by the Nicaraguan Army. He parachuted to safety before being captured.) We had plenty of reason to ask that CNWS refrain from any further illegal shipment of munitions to kill civilians in Central America.
On June 2, 1987, Chris Ballin and I wrote to the CNWS. “We are planning a nonviolent action beginning June 10th. We are writing you because we wish to maintain open contact with all law enforcement agencies and military personnel. . . . We welcome the opportunity to discuss in person why we feel so strongly about this matter and the plans for the on-going resistance.”
CNWS personnel cabled to their superiors in Washington as follows:
BRIAN WILLSON, COORDINATOR OF A PACIFIST ORGANIZATION KNOWN AS QUOTE VETERANS FAST FOR LIFE AND VETERANS PEACE ACTION TEAMS UNQUOTE INFORMED PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER THIS COMMAND THAT ON 10 JUNE HIS ORGANIZATION WILL BEGIN A PERPETUAL ATTEMPT TO BLOCK WEAPONS STATION CONCORD EXPLOSIVE RAIL AND TRUCK MOVEMENT BETWEEN THE STATION’S INLAND AND TIDAL AREAS BY PERMANENTLY STATIONING PERSONNEL ON RAIL TRACK AND IN ROADWAY. HE FURTHER STATED THAT WHEN ONE PERSON IS ARRESTED, ANOTHER WILL TAKE HIS OR HER PLACE FOR AS LONG AS THEY HAVE PEOPLE REMAINING, WITH THOSE ARRESTED RETURNING TO THE SCENE AFTER RELEASE FROM CUSTODY TO REPEAT ACTION. WILLSON IS SAME PERSON WHO FASTED IN WASHINGTON, DC, EARLIER THIS YEAR PROTESTING U.S. CENTRAL AMERICAN POLICY WITH RESULTING HIGH VISIBILITY NATIONAL MEDIA ATTENTION. MEMBERS OF GROUP HAVE BEEN SEEKING TO BUY OR RENT RESIDENCE IN AREA TO HOUSE MARATHON PROTESTERS. WILLSON SAYS THEY HOPE TO KEEP EFFORT GOING FOR AT LEAST SEVERAL MONTHS. SINCE TRACK AND ROADWAY INVOLVED EASILY ACCESSIBLE TO PUBLIC AND UNDER JURISDICTION OF CIVIL AUTHORITIES, THIS SITUATION COULD REQUIRE PERMANENT POLICE PRESENCE AND HAS SERIOUS SAFETY AND SECURITY IMPLICATIONS.
The sustained vigil began on June 10. I was not emotionally or spiritually prepared at first to bodily block vehicles, risking likely arrest. The very first day we watched a locomotive hauling two dozen or so box cars loaded with lethal weapons move slowly by our solemn vigil at the train speed limit of five miles per hour. All of a sudden I burst into tears. In my mind I saw each box car stacked ceiling-high with bodies of Nicaraguans and Salvadorans. It was as if I were a German standing alongside a Nazi train loaded with Jews on their way to the death camps.
Truck blocking went on throughout June with regular arrests and erratic jailings by the police. I was a support person from the sidelines. Train blocking was part of the plans of Nuremburg Actions but had not happened by early July. A local insurance salesman, who had been present on several occasions to support the vigil but who had not taken the prescribed nonviolence training, stepped out on the tracks on his own, without giving notice, when few vigilers were present as a munitions train slowly moved toward him. The locomotive came to within several feet of this man and stopped. The spotters standing on front of the locomotive grabbed the sign from his arms and removed his body from the tracks.
Our presence continued throughout the summer, always at the same location on the Port Chicago side of the public highway at the place where the munitions trains cross the highway. There were nearly always more than one, and sometimes a couple of dozen, persons present during daylight hours from June 10 to September 1.
Sometime in early or mid July I made plans to escalate my own participation in Nuremburg Actions beginning September 1, 1987. On that day, the first anniversary of the beginning of the Veterans’ Fast For Life, I and others would start a forty day water-only fast and begin blocking munitions trains. We would attempt to block movement of the trains for every day during that period. We would fast on the tracks adjacent to the location where we had regularly vigiled since June 10.
Others were invited to join and several persons agreed to participate. Duncan Murphy, a participant in the 1986 fast, also agreed to be part of the forty day fast on the tracks.
We had examined the history of people blocking trains and had concluded that the train would certainly stop. The base would be notified in advance of our action. I still have some of the photographs we collected: for example, Life magazine pictures in the October 8, 1956 and May 19, 1972 issues showing locomotives stopping for protesters.
A doctor was planning to monitor my condition throughout the fast. I expected to spend some or most of the forty days in jail and had briefed the doctor on my need for potassium supplements during the fast to protect nutrition of the heart, and asked that he talk to jailers about the importance of my receiving these supplements.
On August 21, 1987, I sent a letter to CNWS Commander Lonnie Cagle explaining in detail the nature and philosophy of the September 1 plans. The letter asked for a personal meeting at least four times.
This letter . . . requests a personal meeting with you. . . . I want you to know in advance of this plan. . . . Because of the seriousness of these matters I ask that we have a personal meeting to discuss them. This action is not intended to harass you or any military or civilian personnel. . . . I would like to discuss with you your views and response to our concerns. . . . I hope that you will respond so that we can set up a mutually convenient time to meet.
Copies of the letter were sent to the Contra Costa County Sheriff, the Concord Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, and a number of elected officials, including U.S. Senators Cranston and Wilson of California, U.S. Representatives Boxer, Miller, and Edwards of California, and U.S. Senators Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy, and Jeffords of Massachusetts and Vermont, where I had lived most of my life since 1980. I had received no replies as of September 1.
On August 23, Holley Rauen and I were married. We committed ourselves “to be prepared for the risks and prices required, individually and collectively, to live and promote a radical transformation in our North American society.”
Another cable from CNWS to Washington was sent on August 31. It revealed no confusion about our intentions and showed that the Navy was quite clear about our expressed plans.
RECEIVED LETTER FROM GROUP IDENTIFIED AS VETERANS FAST FOR LIFE AND VETERANS PEACE ACTION TEAMS ADVISING THAT PROTESTERS PLAN TO FAST FOR 40 DAYS ON RAILROAD TRACK USED TO TRANSPORT MATERIAL BETWEEN STATION INLAND AND TIDAL AREAS. LETTER AND NEWS ARTICLE QUOTING PROTEST PRINCIPAL, MR. S. BRIAN WILLSON, STATES FAST TO BEGIN 1 SEPT AND THAT FASTERS WILL NOT MOVE FOR APPROACHING RAIL TRAFFIC. LOCAL SHERIFF AND POLICE OFFICERS AWARE OF THREAT. SHOULD POTENTIAL INTERRUPTION OF RAIL SERVICE OCCUR, THEY WILL BE REQUESTED TO REMOVE PROTESTOR(S). COMMANDING OFFICER’S ASSESSMENT: INTERRUPTION OF NORMAL STATION OPERATIONS NOT ANTICIPATED. . . .
The morning of September 1 arrived. We planned a worship service on the tracks after a press conference announcing the formal launching of the fast and the train blockade. Having never been arrested or jailed before, I was a bit anxious. I was most concerned about the prospect that as the fast progressed and I grew weaker, I might be hurt in the arresting process by officers repeatedly removing me from the tracks. Fasting on the Capitol steps appeared easy in comparison to fasting on train tracks at the same time I was attempting to block munitions trains, and subjecting myself to continual arrests.
Besides Duncan Murphy and myself, David Duncombe, a World War II and Korean veteran and a chaplain at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, would be fasting for forty days on the tracks. Others might join us for different periods.
My wife Holley and stepson Gabriel accompanied me as I drove to CNWS, along with fellow faster Duncan Murphy and another friend. Two photographer friends and a friend with a video camera were present to record the press conference, worship service, blocking action, and anticipated arrests.
There were only a few media representatives present for the press conference. We conducted a worship and meditation service with the thirty or forty fasters and supporters. I said the following:
My hope is that today will begin a new era of sustained resistance like the salt march in India and like the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s where people, every day, realize that we, the people, are the ones that are going to make peace. Peacemaking is full-time. Warmaking is full-time. And so my hope is that we will establish or create a kind of action here that revives the imagery of the sustained resistance of the past such as in the salt march and the civil rights movement where people are committed every day to say, “As long as the trains move munitions on these tracks we will be here to stop the trains.” Because each train that goes by here with munitions, that gets by us, is going to kill people, people like you and me.
And the question that I have to ask on these tracks is: Am I any more valuable than those people? And if I say No then I have to say, You can’t move these munitions without moving my body or destroying my body. So today, from the spirit of a year ago on the steps and then for five months in Central America and coming back, the Nuremburg Actions and today, I begin this fast for atonement for all the blood that we have on our hands and that I have on my hands.
And I begin this fast to envision a kind of resistance, an empowering kind of spirit, that we hope to participate in with many people, saying, These munitions will not be exploded in our names and they will not be moved any longer in our names and we must put our bodies in front of them to say, stronger than ever, that this will not continue in our name. The killing must stop and I have to do everything in my power to stop it.
And I hope that when people ask us what they can do to support us: what they can do is they can come to the tracks and stand with us on the tracks to stop the trains. That’s all we want. We want more people to join hands and say, This will not continue. And only we the people can stop it. Thank you.
At about 11:40 A.M. the three of us took our positions on the tracks. Two others held a large banner across the tracks just behind us that stated in bold letters: “NUREMBURG ACTIONS: Complicity in the Commission of a Crime Against Peace, a War Crime, or a Crime Against Humanity, Is a Crime Under International Law.”
I experience what the doctors call regional amnesia. Though I’m told that I was conscious the entire time prior to and after being struck by the train, except for the time in the hospital under anesthesia during surgery, I have no memory over a several-day period. So I will finish my account of what happened on September 1 with this transcript of a cassette recording made by a friend.
VOICE: Okay. Here comes the train.
MALE VOICE: We’re not leaving the tracks, right?
MALE VOICE: We’re not leaving.
MALE VOICE: It’s planning, preparation, initiation, waging a war of aggression or a war in violation of international
[INAUDIBLE DUE TO TRAIN WHISTLE]
[TRAIN WHISTLE IS HEARD FOR NINETEEN SECONDS BEFORE IMPACT]
[TRAIN WHISTLE CEASES]
MALE VOICE: No.
FEMALE VOICE: Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Stop the train! Stop the—Oh, my God!
MALE VOICE: Help.
FEMALE VOICE: Come help me!
FEMALE VOICE: Ambulance is here.
MALE VOICE: Look what you did, you’re the murderers.
GABRIEL: You murderers! You killed my father! You killed my father!
MALE VOICE: Where’s the fucking ambulance?
MALE VOICE: Get an ambulance.
FEMALE VOICE: My God!
[SIRENS]
[MULTIPLE VOICES—INDISCERNIBLE]
GABRIEL: You killed my father! Killed my father! You did that, by God!
MALE VOICE: Stay right there.
MALE VOICE: We love you, Brian.
HOLLEY: I’m holding the bleeding.
MALE VOICE: You want me to hold that [INDIS- CERNIBLE]
HOLLEY: Yes. You have to press very hard so that no more blood comes out.
MALE VOICE: Relax. Real, real hard.
HOLLEY: Right here.
[MULTIPLE VOICES—INDISCERNIBLE]
MAN OPERATING TAPE RECORDER: The train—there’s total confusion. There’s a fire truck that came. There’s still no ambulance. It’s been five minutes since the train came barrelling down the tracks, blowing its horn. The three men who were on the tracks had panic in their eyes and two of them jumped aside. One of them who was kneeling fell back under the train, had his foot rolled over and cut off. Was dragged and bumped and dragged again. His head split open. His other foot cut off. And finally bumped into the inside of the track where the train then pulled on and stopped 400, 500 feet down the road.
The—I never saw the eyes of the guys in the caboose. There were two guys on the cowcatcher, sort of screaming and yahooing and “Here we come.” The Marine guards who are around with their M-16s look panic-stricken. Now there are several veterans who are enraged and yelling and screaming at the soldiers who are starting to surround the crowd and keep people off the tracks. There is still no ambulance. There’s been a County Sheriff and a fire truck and a military vehicle of some kind with an official person with a radio coming around calling for things.
Holley, Brian’s wife, is holding his leg trying to keep it from bleeding. His skull is open, you can see his brain inside. It’s probably a four or five inch gaping hole in his skull. He’s stunned. Stunned—fuck! Grief, all around.
The man from the fire department is attempting to suture and bandage what he can but he—the military keeps telling people to step across the fucking yellow line. I can’t believe it.
Why don’t you guys do something constructive? Jesus Christ!
MALE VOICE: The train was going full bore.
FEMALE VOICE: We heard the screaming. I [INAUDIBLE]
MALE VOICE: Didn’t touch the throttle. Didn’t even touch the throttle.
MALE VOICE: Fucking unbelievable.
MAN OPERATING TAPE RECORDER: They’ve attached something to his nostril. I just picked up a huge chunk of bone. Duncan Murphy is leaning over Brian, trying to hold on to life. Brian’s eyes are closed. I’m not sure at this point.
Gabriel, Brian’s stepson, is still distraught and screaming. As you look around, some of the responses are changing from shock and grief to anger.
Here comes the ambulance. Five, six, seven minutes later.
This was not a surprise. This had been a well-publicized protest. Brian had sent letters to some fifteen or twenty people, the base commander amongst others, last week. Everyone knew full well that this was going to be a day where the train was going to be stopped and the train did not stop.
Looks like military nursing personnel have arrived. He’s still blinking, still holding on. Brian is such a strong character.
FEMALE VOICE: Let’s get a small no-pressure dressing—bandage, a Kurlex.
MALE VOICE: I’ve got [INAUDIBLE]. I’ve got everything under control.
MALE VOICE: Okay.
MALE VOICE: John, is that the only way you can stop it, is with that?
MALE VOICE: —have a tourniquet.
MALE VOICE: Hold on, man.
VOICE: Let’s make a hole.
MALE VOICE: Need anything, buddy?
MALE VOICE: No. Looking good. Looking good.
FEMALE VOICE: How you doing, guy?
MALE VOICE: Pretty good.
FEMALE VOICE: I’m Petty Officer McGee. I’m a Navy Corpsman, okay? Let us help you.
MALE VOICE: I couldn’t tell you, myself.
FEMALE VOICE: Don’t hold pressure. Just hold it there.
FEMALE VOICE: 110 over 80 bp, Bob.
HOLLEY: You’re doing good. Your blood pressure is good, honey. You’re hanging in there.
FEMALE VOICE: You’re doing great, guy. You’re doing great.
FEMALE VOICE: How’re you doing? You doing all right?
FEMALE VOICE: Yeah.
MALE VOICE: Okay. Keep your hands [INAUDIBLE].
HOLLEY: I love you, Brian.
MALE VOICE: We all love you, Brian.
FEMALE VOICE: Brian. Brian.
MALE VOICE: How many victims do you have?
MALE VOICE: What?
MALE VOICE: How many victims do you have?
FEMALE VOICE: Two that I—there’s one minor victim down there.
MALE VOICE: Where’s the other one?
FEMALE VOICE: Everybody’s making a circle around you for healing, Brian.
HOLLEY: Honey, you’ve gotta be brave, okay?
GABRIEL: Why didn’t you dodge it? I wanted you to dodge. Why didn’t you dodge it? Dodge it. You should have dodge—My God, that’s a piece of him! That’s a piece of him!
HOLLEY: Tell him you love him, Gabe. Just tell him you love him.
GABRIEL: My God, that’s a piece of Dad.
MALE VOICE: It’s all right.
HOLLEY: Just tell him you love him.
GABRIEL: That’s a piece of my Dad!
HOLLEY: Tell him you love him. Bring him up here.
MALE VOICE: It’s all right.
FEMALE VOICE: Dan, tell him you love him.
HOLLEY: Hey, Gabe, listen, I’m going to go to the hospital with Brian and—
VOICE: I want to go with you.
FEMALE VOICE: I’ll take you there.
HOLLEY: Okay, they’ll take you and you meet us at the hospital, okay?
FEMALE VOICE: I’ll take you there, Gabe. I promise you.
FEMALE VOICE: Okay? Okay? Okay?
VOICE: God.
HOLLEY: He’s going to be okay, honey.
GABRIEL: No, it’s not going to be all right, that’s my Dad.
HOLLEY: Yeah, we know. You know? I know, honey, I saw the whole thing.
FEMALE VOICE: Right now we need to get out of the way so they can [INAUDIBLE].
GABRIEL: God, you have blood all over you!
HOLLEY: I was stopping the bleeding on his legs, honey.
MAN OPERATING TAPE RECORDER: They brought a stretcher now. They’re placing Brian’s torso, that’s what it is. His legs are gone below the knees. His head is wide open. He’s still hanging on. His blood pressure is pretty good. People have formed a semi-circle around him, holding hands, trying to help pump life.
It’s still a pretty confusing situation. Duncan Murphy is still hanging on as is Holley. And the Corps is working to strap him to a piece of plywood now to lift him up into the ambulance.
Now there are police vehicles everywhere. Highway Patrol, Concord Police, County Sheriff; as well as all the military police. Lots of little radios calling someone somewhere.
The train is still stopped, ironically, down the track some 500 feet, meters, I don’t know: some distance down the road with this little triangle of explosive or dangerous cargo highlighting the back of it.
The engineer is still standing on the cab looking back. The two guys on the cowcatcher, I don’t know where they are. They are behind the fence and the sentries so we can’t approach them. It’s on military property and they’re making it very clear that we don’t cross the yellow line.
The young Marine guards whose responsibility that is, initially came out here trying to look serious but sort of with a chuckle. This was another day, another job. And all of a sudden it’s a different day.
People are yelling. Some of the veterans are angry and yelling at the—I don’t know—at the air, at the fates, at the gods.
This whole thing had been orchestrated and planned and the train didn’t stop. [End of transcript]
When I became conscious, I saw Holley Rauen sitting next to my bed. I saw many green plants throughout the room. I thought this was a very unusual jail cell. It seemed more like a greenhouse. Holley explained to me that I was in John Muir Hospital, Walnut Creek, California. The train (on September 1 a locomotive hauling two boxcars) had crashed into me and continued moving over my body until the last of the two box cars was inside the fenced base area guarded by United States Marines.
I asked what happened to Duncan Murphy and David Duncombe who were part of the blockade. I learned that David, who was crouching (not sitting like me), jumped out of the way just before the train would have hit him. Duncan, also crouching, made a mighty leap straight up—quite a feat for a sixty-seven-year-old veteran—and grabbed the cowcatcher railing, cutting his knee but otherwise escaping injury.
It took several days for this reality to sink in. I began to watch television news reports on the wall-mounted hospital TV, which continued to carry stories about the assault, including selected cuts from the amateur video footage provided the media by my friend Bob Spitzer. For several days I saw the speeding train with two human spotters standing on the platform above the cowcatcher barrelling down on the three of us on the tracks.
I began to comprehend the life-altering nature of my injuries. The most serious of my injuries were a severely fractured skull, missing a golf-ball-size piece from the right forehead area; a seriously cut and damaged right frontal brain lobe; a severed but sewn-back-on left ear; and two legs missing below my knees. That I was alive at all seemed the more remarkable when I learned that a United States Navy ambulance arrived on the bloody scene within the first few minutes after I was hurt but refused to provide medical assistance or transportation to a hospital, apparently because my body was not lying on government property.
People who were present told me that I was conscious throughout and talked with those attending to my very vulnerable body. Holley directed a series of emergency medical procedures with the aid of several horrified supporters, stopping the bleeding from my right leg stump, from my mangled and twisted left leg, from my almost severed ear, and from the hole in the right forehead portion of my skull. These procedures, in addition to the nourishing love of those present, kept my fragile being alive until the county ambulance arrived some twenty minutes later.
Why hadn’t the train stopped, I asked? They knew we were there. Visibility was excellent. The speed limit was a slow five miles per hour.
Holley was as shocked as I was, as every one was. She said that as she was standing off to the side, carrying a political sign as part of the support demonstration of thirty to forty people, she saw the two human spotters standing on the front of the locomotive distinctly shaking their heads from side to side as if to say, “We are not stopping, no way!”
From the beginning a lot of people came up to me and said, “You know this couldn’t have happened without it being designed and intended to happen that way.” I’m not a very conspiratorial-thinking person, nor a particularly paranoid person. I’m kind of naive.
I started thinking differently after the Congressional hearing held on November 18, 1987. Navy officials admitted that they knew a lot about me. Navy Captain S. J. Pryzby told the Congressional committee that the Navy knew about me, about the fasts, the trips to Nicaragua, and my being at the tracks since June 10, and he seemed to be describing me as a man of my word. I sat there thinking, “They knew that I wouldn’t get off the tracks.”
Then I found the notes of the unsanitized Navy report that had not been made public lying on the table in the room next to the hearing room. I started reading them and thought, “My God, this is in the original report that they didn’t release to the public.” I put the notes in my briefcase.
Later I got a copy of the sheriff’s report, which was not included in the Navy report. It contained interviews with the train engineer, who said he was under orders not to stop the train.
Finally, I learned that at the time of the assault I was being investigated by the government as a terrorist. I was in the ABC-TV studio in Washington, D.C. in November 1987. They showed me the FBI documents and said, “We want your face on camera looking at these documents.” I hadn’t known anything about them until then.
Let’s restate what happened on September 1 according to what we now know. The protesters, including myself, began the blockade after elaborate prior notice at about 11:40 A.M. A few minutes later the munitions train came into view. Upon seeing three men blockading the tracks, the train stopped near the main gate to await further instructions. CNWS personnel notified the county sheriff. The sheriff told them it would take his forces thirty minutes to reach the scene.
Up to this point every one’s actions were consistent with the expectation, which I confidently shared, that the locomotive would not move until the sheriff’s men arrived and arrested us.
Just after 11:55 A.M. the train began to move forward again. The FBI concluded after examining Bob Spitzer’s videotape that the train was speeding at about 17 miles per hour, over three times its legal speed limit of five miles per hour. It was a bright sunny day. There was clear visibility for at least 650 feet according to the Navy’s report. Yet the locomotive not only did not stop, but seems to have accelerated after striking me, as evidenced in a photograph revealing a fresh burst of smoke issuing from its smoke stack at the time of impact and after, as I lay mangled under the train.
The train did not stop because the train crew had been instructed not to stop. Ed Hubbard, railroad supervisor at CNWS, says “he told the crew, if the protesters started climbing on the train, to continue until the train was inside the gates and the marines could take over.” David Humiston, the engineer, and Ralph Dawson, one of the two spotters, said they received orders not to stop if the protesters started “boarding the locomotive or the cars it was pulling.” The statements of the crew members are quoted in “Weapons train that maimed pacifist was under Navy orders not to stop,” National Catholic Reporter, Jan. 29, 1988.
Now, of course, we who were on the tracks had no intention of boarding the train or climbing on the locomotive and box cars, and we never did anything of the kind. But it seems that the Navy expected us to do so. And because of this expectation, the crew was instructed not to stop until it reached base property, or perhaps, not to stop if we did anything causing them to think we might be about to board the train.
From what source did the Navy derive its apparent belief that those who sat down on the tracks on September 1 would also try to board the train? We had written to the CNWS commander, distributed leaflets throughout the area, and talked extensively with the media. In none of these many statements did we state or suggest that we might seek to do anything but sit quietly on the tracks. I believe the source for the Navy’s mistaken anticipation may have been the FBI. On October 10, 1986, while the Veterans’ Fast For Life was in progress, U.S. Senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire released a letter stating in part: “In my opinion, their actions are hardly different than those of the terrorists who are holding our hostages in Beirut.” See “Rudman Likens Fasting Veterans To Terrorists,” Boston Globe, Oct. 11, 1986. In that same month the FBI directed its agents to begin an inquiry into the alleged terrorism of those conducting the Veterans’ Fast For Life. FBI agent John C. Ryan told his superiors in a memorandum of December 4, 1986 that he refused to take part in the investigation of a group that had a “totally non-violent posture.” He was fired after nearly twenty-two years of service. See “The cost of a fired FBI agent’s journey to Catholic nonviolence,” National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 27, 1987; “FBI Probe of Willson Reported,” San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 12, 1987.
These facts support the conclusion that the United States government expected “terrorists” like Brian Willson to try to seize the locomotive and its boxcars, just as terrorists hijack airplanes; and therefore, at some level higher than the CNWS train crew and its supervisor, decided not to stop the train.
I continue to believe that the decision to move and accelerate the train on September 1, 1987, cannot be fully understood outside the context of the government’s demonstrated interest in my activities before September 1. The precise relationship of this prior interest to the decision intentionally and recklessly to move the train has yet to be unravelled. At a minimum it created a milieu of lack of concern, contempt, and wanton disregard. At a maximum, it was attempted murder.
I have a lot of empathy for the train crew. First of all, they’re all living the way I used to live; I believe they’re brainwashed just as I was. Second, they probably do have traumatic stress (which is what they sued me for) because I think they were caught in a conflict between following their orders and following their consciences. They were on the lower end of a chain of command that’s involved in a diabolical, criminal national policy. They’re the grunt men, just as we were in Vietnam.
The solution to their stress is to endure a transformational process within themselves, not to sue me. But if they were going to sue, they should have sued the Navy, which gave the order and possesses money.
I condemn their action. I just plead with them to be open to transformation, which is the only way to heal their stress, and to tell the truth about who gave the order and as to their state of mind.
POSTSCRIPT. As of the date of this writing (June 1, 1992), Nuremburg Actions has steadfastly resisted movement of munitions trucks and trains at CNWS for 1,817 consecutive days, temporarily blocking well over a thousand such trucks and trains, weathering cold, rain, 1,700 arrests, a number of jail terms, and hostile and violent responses from local residents. Rev. David Duncombe, himself having narrowly escaped injury or death on September 1, 1987, has continued his participation in Nuremburg Actions, being present every Thursday since that date when not in jail. He has been arrested numerous times for blocking the movement of munitions trucks and trains, while continuing to maintain his position as Chaplain and Professor at the University of California at San Francisco Medical School. He has been convicted twice in jury trials, serving a number of weeks in jail on each sentence. In both trials the judge excluded from jury consideration the violations of international (and therefore United States Constitutional) law by the United States government, and its agent, the United States Navy, in committing war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity in the murdering and maiming of innocent civilians in Latin America.
*The facts in this paragraph about blocking of trains and trucks during the Vietnam War are drawn from an unpublished manuscript by Tom Wells, “The War over the War: Protestors and the White House During the Vietnam Era.”