Mothers Day at the Bangor Trident Base

personal account by Jan Prichard-Cohen

As a Tacoma Catholic Worker, I wanted to participate in the action; an apt way, I thought, to celebrate Mother's Day, demonstrating for a peaceful world for all children. I was not prepared for what happened: the quiet diffusion of our nonviolent dissent, the attempt to silence by courtesy and quick removal of the participants.

My father, Captain James A. Prichard, USN, was Commanding Officer of Keyport, Bangor and Indian Island in the 1950s and I lived at Keyport during this time. I was, in a way, coming home to an environment I grew up in, a familiar world for me.

Strange walking across that blue line that separates us civilians from the military establishments threatening our lives, our planet, and our freedoms. Strange listening to an officer give a warning to leave now or face arrest and the consequences. He held my arm gently, but on a pressure point that would disable me if I had moved toward any kind of action. I felt like I was being escorted to a church pew at a wedding.

When we got to the police van, stationed behind the entrance gate, something changed. We became a documentary, a documentary we have all witnessed on the screen many times in crime films-you know the drill as well as I do, hands over your head, palms pressed against the side of the car, legs spread apart. A woman Marine in battle fatigues felt my arms, legs, crotch, buttocks, breasts, neck. And then the cuff, double locked for my safety, they said. I felt my sense of balance was compromised, askew, deserted. Luckily the guard attending me was quick to see I could easily fall, and helped me in and out of the van, pushing down my head, yes, just like in the movies.

Strange to recite my name, social security number, that rote of who you are, and then the photographer.

It was the Ban and Bar letter, signed by the Executive Officer by Direction of the Commanding Officer that drove home this very personal, very symbolic act of civil disobedience, an act of resistance to the misguided, immoral, criminal, unjust, evil policies of a government gone mad with power.

I read the line "you are prohibited from entering Naval Base Kitsap on a permanent basis, an area the includes Bremerton, Bangor and Keyport installations. I felt intimidated by the possibility of imprisonment up to six months, or a fine up to $5,000 or both, should I re-enter the installations at Naval Base Kitsap.

Strange, a place I called home no longer open to me. I was married at Keyport. My father's Memorial Service was held at the Keyport Chapel. A street behind our quarters was named after my father. This place I called home, where I had lived the longest, a place where my dad had been Commanding Officer, once at Bangor, once at Indian Island, and twice at Keyport.

No longer open to me, it is true, but the deep peace I feel within me affirms the discernment I made to carry out an act of civil disobedience at this source of fear, this source of unchecked power. This deep peace shows me how important it is for each one of us to live our beliefs, our truth in our actions. In this way we can each one of us make that collective and inexorable commitment toward change, toward a better world, toward living the Works of Mercy.

Condensed and reprinted with permission from the Tacoma Catholic Worker, June 2006.