A little before 2:00 pm I started driving up busy Hampton Blvd toward the naval base. I had called Ann, who surprised me when she said they were already well up Hampton, so I was now trying to stay in the faster lanes to catch them in time. But this is where the colloquial version of the Peter Principle, where if something can possibly go wrong in a situation, it usually does, suddenly kicked in because, as I approached the intersection of Terminal Blvd and Hampton Blvd, I noted that on the far right, a Norfolk Southern freight train headed for the coal piers was starting to cross into the intersection to the accompaniment of clanging signal bells and flashing red lights. No way was I going to be able to run past that.
So I sat and sat, openly cursing, while some 150 cars - I don't know, lost count - slowly clanged by at five to ten miles an hour. Perfect untiming! Cars where piling up for blocks on both sides. Finally the caboose wheeled by and the traffic started flowing again. A mile or so later I saw several of our group's cars parked on the last residential side street before the base, pulled up to them, parked and got out. Ann greeted me, explaining that the marchers were just reaching the end of the journey now, so we jumped into her car and she whisked me up to the end of Admiral Taussig Blvd and Hampton, the very last intersection before the main gate. As she stopped at the right corner momentarily, I lept out, camera in hand. There was the Final Twelve, most of them standing just ahead on a traffic island, holding their very last peace vigil as traffic whizzed by every which way. Taking another headcount, I discovered that they had picked up one more soul to replace Patrice, keeping that figure twelve intact.
For the next half hour or so everyone just basically waved signs and posters, handing out a few leaflets to curious marines or sailors walking by. Finally though, they began to form up for one last vigil prayer circle, not merely to summarize and bless the impact of the vigil, but to prayer for Russell and Glenn, who had decided to carry out an act of simple civil disobedience. Steve Baggarly of Norfolk Catholic Worker, a well-known, oft-arrested witness for peace himself, led things off with some simple thanks. Then Tom Palumbo, main organizer for Norfolk OffBase incarcerated himself in the past for taking principled positions against authority, read aloud the history and current military mission and breadth of Naval Station Norfolk before handing things back to Steve, who now read that famous passage from Micah, Chapter 4, verses 1-4 in the Bible. This is the King James version:
1 Â ¶ But in the last days it shall come to pass, [that] the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. 2. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 3. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 4. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make [them] afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken.
Next, Russell, who has been arrested before for protesting against what was formerly known as the SOA or School of the Americas (Americas often interchanged with the word Assassins by many) said a few words and then a prayer, the two sisters chanted and gestured out their own prayer, Russell De Young and Glenn Fiscella grabbed their long banner and started walking out into the traffic to block a lane at the main gate, and everyone broke into a hymn, appropriately about beating swords into plowshares, led by the Sisters.
The red and black on white six-foot or so long banner read "Conversion: Military Dollars to Human Needs." As Russell and Glenn, who had also been incarcerated in the past at a New York City anti-war rally, approached the actual security gate, shouts and the high shrieks of police whistles filled the air and a contingent of police rushed to arrest them. They had been standing by because it had already been announced in the media that there would be an act of civil disobedience. The arrests were completed in several minutes, and everything went back to normal in a jaded world overwhelmed with war, torture, mass murder and weaponry, but abnormal in a Universe underwritten by Love and Unity. You can watch the whole thing slowly unfold on my video of the event by clicking here.
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