Biography
Father Jerome 'Jerry' Zawada OFM was a Franciscan friar of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Province (later the Sacred Heart Province) and a peace activist whose six decades of ministry included extensive work in the Philippines, in Nicaragua during the Contra war, and at U.S. military installations. He was arrested dozens of times across his life, primarily for SOA Watch line-crossings at Fort Benning, Georgia, and for protests at the Nevada Test Site, serving multiple short federal sentences. He died in 2017 at age 80.
Convicted in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia under 18 U.S.C. § 1382 (entering a military reservation) for participating in the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) annual nonviolent civil-disobedience action at Fort Benning, Georgia on September 2002. The action targeted the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) — formerly the School of the Americas — which had trained Latin American military officers later linked to assassinations, torture, and massacres including Romero, the four U.S. churchwomen, the Jesuits in El Salvador, El Mozote, and Plan Cóndor. Defendants typically received 3 to 6 months in federal custody plus a fine.
The July 2013 Ground Zero newsletter individually names Jerome Zawada among the fourteen people arrested on the federal side of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor during the Pacific Life Community action on March 4, 2013. It also identifies this person among seven defendants arraigned June 5 on a trespass/re-entry charge under 18 U.S.C. 1382, pleading not guilty and awaiting an October 21 trial. The possibility of jail was prospective. The report does not establish a complete jail interval or an eventual prison sentence. Source: https://www.gzcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/July-13-newsletter-for-website.pdf#page=7
Sources
Separate 1988 pretrial detention and bond release
A November 9, 1988 letter signed by the Missouri Peace Planting participants, including Jerry, describes Zawada's October 4 reentry and bond forfeiture, with confinement through the November 2 trial conclusion. Its continuation says he was out on bond awaiting sentencing. A separate row records October 4 admission and November release at month precision only; November 2 is not promoted from trial conclusion to a discharge day. The automatic partial-date counter is not documented actual days. Original Post Amerikan, physical pages 13–14 / printed pages 12–13.
The old August 14 arrest date and blanket dismissal/cite-and-release statements are withdrawn. The letter documents trespass convictions, not universal dismissal. Other campaign custody and later sentence endpoints remain unknown, and are not joined into one continuous stay. Existing identified photograph retained; unrelated later cases unchanged.
Contemporary obituary and separate imprisonment episodes
The August 2017 Catholic Agitator obituary identifies Father Jerry Zawada as the Franciscan friar who died July 25 at age eighty, corroborating the existing death date without supplying a new birth date. It reports two years of late-1980s imprisonment for repeated Midwest missile-silo trespass, three six-month School of the Americas prison sentences associated with 2001, 2003 and 2005, and two months in 2007 following protest of torture training at Fort Huachuca. These are distinct campaigns and retrospective term summaries, not exact physical-admission or discharge dates. The caption names Zawada and Toni Flynn as having served six-month terms at the same time in Crisp County Jail for the 2001 Fort Benning line-crossing. This event-year label must not be substituted for an independently documented admission year. Existing case dates and counters remain unchanged; no sentence maximum is converted into exact actual days.
Catholic Agitator, August 2017, original PDF page 7 / printed page 7.
The contemporary report documents a separate custody episode: Two years probation; $5,000 fine or 500 community-service hours.
The Nuclear Resister155 reports that he was among seven people arrested at Creech Air Force Base on September28,2009, taken to Clark County Detention Center and held overnight. The report describes next-day processing but does not establish his actual release date; that field remains unknown. This is separate from the Fort Huachuca case.
The Nuclear Resister’s March 27, 2013 report names Jerome Zawada among eight people arrested during an anti-drone die-in that blocked traffic at Creech Air Force Base that day. The participants were charged with disturbing the peace and released with a future June court date. The report does not establish this person’s exact release day, jail admission, later verdict or custody duration. Contemporary report.
The March 17, 2014 report individually lists Jerry Zawada among those arrested after crossing the boundary at the Nevada National Security Site on March 10 during the Pacific Life Community gathering. The named participants were held in processing pens, issued citations and released a short time later. No statutory charge, individual jail admission, completed full day of custody or subsequent court outcome is supplied. The period during which the group crossed the boundary is not treated as an individual detention duration. The Nuclear Resister, March 17, 2014.
The July 14, 2013 Jane Stoever report individually names this person among twenty-four protesters arrested after crossing the property line at the new Kansas City nuclear-weapons-parts plant on July 13. All twenty-four were fingerprinted, photographed and detained at the Jackson County Police Department. The report gives mixed group release dates of July 13 and 14, with some releases expected July 15, but does not assign an individual endpoint to this person. No formal charge, exact jail admission, completed custody duration or later court outcome is inferred. Earlier charges against Carl Kabat for separate actions are not assigned to this event. The Nuclear Resister, July 14, 2013.
Nevada Desert Experience’s March 30, 2013 report individually names Jerome Zawada among twenty people arrested at the Nevada National Security Site entrance on March 29 after the Sacred Peace Walk and a yoga peace dance. It does not state this person’s charge, jail admission or actual release day. The five-day walk is not a five-day custody term, and the earlier Creech arrests are a separate event. The roster uses Jerry Zawada, OFM, the Franciscan also identified as Jerry in his existing biography. The Nuclear Resister, March 30, 2013.
The 2017 obituary by Brian Roewe in the National Catholic Reporter identifies Jerome “Jerry” Zawada’s first arrest as a 1984 Chicago protest against CIA involvement in Nicaragua. It distinguishes that arrest from his later Missouri missile-silo, School of the Americas and anti-drone cases. The report supplies no exact arrest day, admission, release or individual sentence for the 1984 episode.
Recollections collected with the obituary describe his 2015 Creech Air Force Base trespass trial: Chris Nelson’s daughter Orien reported that he was found not guilty, after which her mother Chris Nelson’s case was dismissed. These are attributed accounts of that proceeding, without a newly inferred trial date or custody duration. The ecclesiastical direction to prayer and penance described elsewhere in the obituary was a church restriction, not a new civil prison term.
The 2017 obituary lists three six-month School of the Americas prison sentences, labeled 2001, 2003 and 2005. Rosalie Riegle’s accompanying recollection says she interviewed Zawada in 2004 just after his release from his second Fort Benning term. That identifies a separate second SOA episode without fixing its arrest, sentencing, admission or discharge date. The 2015 Creech arrest and later reported acquittal are separate from his earlier anti-drone proceedings; the recollections do not date the acquittal itself.
Brian Roewe’s 2017 obituary reports that Zawada was arrested five times during Missouri Peace Planting in 1988 and received a 25-month sentence. This imposed term is distinct from the obituary’s approximate two-year account of service and from his separately documented October 4 pretrial detention. The article’s August missile-silo recollection does not fix an individual arrest day or an exact discharge.
Collected obituary, including National Catholic Reporter, July 27, 2017.
The April 23, 2010 Nuclear Resister report individually identifies Fr. Jerry Zawada among the five arrested at Fort Huachuca on November 15, 2009. Harris’s later guilty plea, probation and community service are reported separately from any unestablished jail custody. The report does not supply an individual prison-admission or physical release date. Source.
The contemporary January 29, 2011 report individually names this participant among eight people immediately arrested by Nye County sheriffs after stepping onto the Nevada Test Site during the sixtieth-anniversary protest. The Western Shoshone National Council had issued entry permits. The report does not identify an individual charge, physical jail admission, release date or completed detention duration for this episode. Contemporary source.
The January 27, 2011 account and reproduced Las Vegas Sun report individually identify this participant among the Creech 14 arrested on April 9, 2009. Judge William Jansen found all fourteen guilty of trespass and imposed time served on January 27, 2011. The statements below the article carry an inconsistent July 27, 2010 heading; the dated report and reproduced contemporary news account establish the January 2011 disposition. Time served is the imposed disposition, without a measured number of days or a claim of continuous custody from arrest to sentencing. Contemporary source.
The March 6, 2015 Creech Air Force Base report individually includes Jerome Zawada in its named arrest roster. The compilation reports trespass and roadway-related allegations and describes citation-and-release processing, but one person held on an outstanding warrant is unnamed. Neither that warrant detention nor an overnight stay is allocated to this person. The differing reported aggregate totals are retained without inventing an additional identity or completed custody duration.
Sources: Contemporary report.
The March 2, 2015 Sunnyvale Lockheed Martin report names Jerome Zawada among twelve people arrested while blocking traffic. Four were released that afternoon and one that evening, while seven remained jailed after declining to sign release papers. The report does not identify which individuals were in each release group, so it does not establish this person’s individual overnight detention, admission or release endpoint.
Sources: Contemporary report.
