Bill Bichsel
Biography
Jesuit priest from Tacoma, WA ('Bix'); one of the Disarm Now Plowshares five who on Nov. 2, 2009 cut into Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, WA, reached the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific, hung banners and hammered fences. (Action is title-only on the chronology page; details from public record.)
Father William J. 'Bix' Bichsel SJ was an American Jesuit priest, founder of the G.I. Joe Catholic Worker House in Tacoma, Washington, and one of the founding figures of the Pacific Northwest anti-nuclear movement. He spent six decades organizing against the U.S. Trident submarine base at Bangor on Hood Canal — home to the largest concentration of nuclear weapons in the United States — and against the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was arrested more than thirty times for civil-disobedience actions, beginning in the 1980s.
In the early hours of November 2, 2009, Bix — then 81 years old — and four other Catholic activists (including the late Anne Montgomery RSCJ, Susan Crane, Steve Kelly SJ, and Lynne Greenwald) cut through three security fences and entered the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, where the U.S. Pacific fleet's Trident D-5 nuclear warheads are stored. They reached the inner perimeter, where they hung banners, scattered sunflower seeds, and waited to be arrested. The action became known as the Disarm Now Plowshares. The five were charged with conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property, and depredation of government property. After a December 2010 trial they were convicted by a federal jury in Tacoma. Bix was sentenced in March 2011 to three months in federal prison plus four months of home confinement.
In 2010 he had also served three months at FCI Marianna for an SOA Watch border crossing at Fort Benning. He died on February 28, 2015 at age 86. Father Bill 'Bix' Bichsel SJ was an American Jesuit priest, peace activist with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington, and one of the most consistently arrested U.S. anti-nuclear and SOA Watch activists. He was sentenced to twelve months in federal prison in connection with the September 29, 1997 SOA sign-altering action at Fort Benning. He served at FPC Sheridan, Oregon. Bichsel later participated in the November 2, 2009 Disarm Now Plowshares action at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and died in 2015.
On September 29, 1997, five activists — Father Bill Bichsel SJ, Sister Marge Eilerman OSF, Ed Kinane, Mary Trotochaud, and others — altered the entrance sign at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. The five were tried in October 1998 in federal court in Columbus, GA and sentenced to 8 to 12 months in federal prison. Held at Federal Prison Camp Sheridan, Oregon (Unit 5, BOP register 86275-020) for participating in the School of the Americas Watch annual line-crossing protest at Fort Benning, GA.
