Many friends of Voices in the Wilderness joined with War Resisters League members and were arrested today for acts of civil disobedience in front of the Pentagon. Jerry Zawada, OFM, Farah Mokhtareizadeh, Jeff Leys, as well as the author of the following article, Mike Ferner, were among our close friends that were arrested. Farah Mokhtareizadeh and Jeff Leys, along with Ed Kinane and Joel Gulledge, are on their 14th day of fasting for economic justice outside the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) in Washington, D.C. In the morning the fasters will be in New York City in front of the United Nations building to continue their call for the cancellation of the $125 billion of debt incurred by Saddam Hussein that is now thrust upon the Iraqi people.

Members of Veterans for Peace Mike Ferner and Bill Perry (photo: David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org)

by Mike Ferner

Washington, D.C. - In a pre-dawn civil disobedience action Monday morning, 41 War Resisters League members and others sat down and were arrested at a pedestrian entrance to the Pentagon, slowing foot traffic at that location and prompting officials to close the U.S. military headquarters’ sole stop on Washington’s Metro line for a period.

Protesters, including Elizabeth McAllister and her daughter, Frieda Berrigan, Susan Crane, Ken Crowley, Jeff Leys, Farah Mokhtareizadeh, Joel Gulledge and others with a long history of peace activism and arrests for civil disobedience, leafleted or sat down to block people from entering Entrance Three of the sprawling U.S. military command.

In one group of six, Crane repeated to the backed-up line of civilians and military personnel waiting at the security checkpoint, “Remember the innocent victims in Iraq.” Another protester urged officers to think about what they were doing and “resign your commissions.”

Wearing a Veterans For Peace garrison cap and t-shirt, I took the opportunity to say “Good morning, my name is Mike Ferner. I’m from Toledo, Ohio,” and explained that I had served in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman during Viet Nam, taking care of hundreds of soldiers coming back “in pieces” from that conflict. “We have to get smarter than that,” I implored.

At the same time, protesters blocked other portions of Entrance Three, delivering various messages to hundreds more of the 26,000 workers in the building with over 17 miles of corridors.

Pentagon police handcuffed each of us and lead us back down a stairway to the access road where cars and buses added to the flow of workers arriving from the Metro. Sitting on the curb, with our arms pulled back tightly behind us, we continued to talk to as many men and women as we could before being taken by patrol car to a nearby Pentagon facility.

Over the next four hours we were fingerprinted, photographed and booked, receiving written citations for disobeying a lawful order, and given dates in January to appear at the Arlington, Virginia Federal District Court.

The night before the action, 60 people, including those who were ultimately arrested and others providing support, met at the offices of a community organization in the Shaw district of Northwest Washington, where a volunteer attorney from the National Lawyers Guild briefed us. Other Guild observers were present as we were arrested, and met us after we were released from booking.

One critical observation of the morning’s activity was the nearly complete lack of news media coverage. Pentagon officials have banned any photographs of the facility since the attack on September 11, 2001, but no print or radio reporters were there to observe, either. Organizers had sent out news releases three days earlier, but had not scheduled a news conference for when arrestees were released from booking. Berrigan gave a phone interview to Democracy Now from the booking facility, and I gave an interview to an Indymedia reporter on the street in front of the White House after arriving there to support the much larger civil disobedience action conducted by United for Peace and Justice. At that event, the arrest of Cindy Sheehan and nearly 400 others drew considerable press attention. A small number of those arrested at the White House, including Franciscan priest, Jerry Zawada, had also been arrested earlier at the Pentagon.

Ferner is a freelance writer and member of Veterans For Peace. In addition to participating in the civil disobedience action at the Pentagon, he joined nearly a half-million peace activists in Washington, September 24.

© 2005 by Mike Ferner

At 1:15, everybody not holding a camera or a gun sat down on the sidewalk. (photo: David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org)