Biography
Jack Gilroy crossed the line at Fort Benning, Georgia during the November 2000 SOA Watch vigil. Sentenced to 6 months, $1000 fine.
Each year on the November anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter at the University of Central America in San Salvador in 1989, peace activists gather at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, site of the U.S. Army School of the Americas / Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), to commemorate the dead and to call for the school's closure. Hundreds have crossed the line onto the base over four decades of vigils; many have served federal sentences ranging from 30 days to a year for trespass.
The book’s biographical account says Gilroy served three months at Jamesville Correctional Facility in 2014 for the Hancock drone-base die-in. That differs from Gilroy’s December 3, 2014 first-person reflection and a same-day contemporary report, which both describe two months actually spent in jail. Three months was the sentence imposed on October 1; two months is the completed custody length reported by Gilroy himself. The Nuclear Resister No.176 (December 9, 2014, printed page 3) reports his physical release on November 28, establishing 58 elapsed days after his October 1 admission. In his 2002 narrative, he also recalled being at Allenwood Prison Camp on September 11, 2001.
The biographical introduction reports three months served at Jamesville in 2014. Gilroy’s December 3, 2014 first-person account and contemporary reporting instead describe two months actually spent there, following the three-month sentence imposed October 1. The accounts differ; the two-month figure is his rounded post-prison recollection. The Nuclear Resister No.176 (December 9, 2014, printed page 3) supplies the exact November 28 release, establishing 58 elapsed days from October 1. His separate Allenwood account places him there on September 11, 2001; the chronology of his earlier SOA Watch imprisonment remains unresolved.
The April 15, 2024 entry identifies Veterans for Peace member Jack Gilroy as arrested for trespass while attempting to deliver a letter to BAE Systems in Endicott, New York, concerning arms supplied to Israel. No custody endpoint or measured term is reported. The Nuclear Resister, chronicle of Gaza solidarity arrests.
An April 3, 2015 Nuclear Resister report connects Jack Gilroy’s Hancock prosecution to the April 28, 2013 die-in and reports three months served following a jury trial in 2014. That three-month retrospective account conflicts with Gilroy’s December 3, 2014 first-person reflection and a same-day contemporary report, which both report two months actually spent in jail. His three-month imposed sentence is independently documented; his own two-month account is used for completed custody. His first-person reflection also explicitly identifies him among those arrested at Hancock on April 28, 2013. The Nuclear Resister No.176 (December 9, 2014, printed page 3) reports the exact November 28 release; the October 1 admission and November 28 exit span 58 elapsed days. April 2015 report.
The October 1, 2014 Upstate Drone Action report identifies Jack Gilroy as sentenced that day by DeWitt Town Court Judge Robert Jokl to three months incarceration, three years probation and a $1,000 fine, and says he was taken into custody immediately. It dates the jury conviction for trespass and obstructing government administration to July 15 following a two-day trial concerning the Hancock drone-base funeral procession and die-in. The report explicitly dates admission to serve the sentence to October 1. The three months are the imposed term; this report does not establish the initial protest arrest day, actual discharge or completed length of imprisonment. These proceedings were separate from his SOA Watch and later BAE protests. The Nuclear Resister, October 1, 2014.
The December 9, 2014 issue of The Nuclear Resister explicitly reports that Jack Gilroy was taken to the county jail after his October 1 sentence and released on November 28. Together with the contemporary report of immediate admission, these dates establish 58 elapsed days in the 2014 Hancock case. Three months was the imposed term; his December 3 first-person description of two months actually served is a rounded account. Source: The Nuclear Resister No.176, December 9, 2014, printed page 3.
The contemporary roster individually names this participant among 27 people arrested on the White House sidewalk on April 10, 2011 during a die-in calling for closure of the School of the Americas. The report does not specify an individual charge, jail admission, release date or detention duration. Contemporary report.
The contemporary report individually names this participant among those arrested at Hancock Air Base on April 28, 2013 after the anti-drone funeral procession. Its follow-up specifically places this person among the ten appearance-ticket recipients, separately from the twenty-one people listed as arraigned that Sunday. Contemporary source.
