“Nobody should profit from the slaughter of innocents”

W.J. Astore

Jack Gilroy has his day in court against the Merchants of Death

This afternoon at 2:00PM, 89-year-old Jack Gilroy has his day in court in Endicott Village, New York. His crime: trespassing. His real “crime”: protesting against genocide in Gaza and a murderous war in Ukraine and U.S. support of and profiteering from the same.

Jack reached out to me a week ago. He’s a “Bracing Views” reader and asked if I might share his ideas and plight with all of you. Hell yes, I said, so here are some words from Jack Gilroy as he prepares for his day in court later this afternoon:

My reward [for peace activism] at St Francis Xavier Parish (Jesuit) in NYC was just last week when I was given a nice plaque for my peace and justice actions over the decades. It was the first recognition since I received Soldier of the Month in my Infantry Battalion in the Austrian Alps in June of 1955. I had just come back from Vienna and some face-to-face confrontation with Godless Communists. I saw just young people like me, and I was just turning 20 at the time. The good Catholic sisters (IHM) who taught me in Carbondale, Pa a little coal town, were the same ones that taught Joe Biden just a few miles away in Scranton and seven years younger than me. I woke up to the lie of militarism in 1955 but Joe is still trapped in the lies of the Cold War.

Today I will go on trial in a village court in Endicott NY for trespass on the property that I pay for with tax dollars, nearby BAE Systems. I was attempting to deliver a letter to warn management and workers that they are part of a series of criminal law-breaking as outlined in our Veterans For Peace Six Broken Laws Letter. I was arrested when BAE Security called the cops. 

In my attempt to get folks to come to my trial, I note the trial is not about me, but the Merchants of Death, and BAE Systems is one of the largest.

We (VFP, Pax Christi and Peace Action members) started Tax Day 2024, April 15 at the 155mm shell factory of General Dynamics in Scranton (like BAE, General Dynamics makes a lot of dough from nuclear weapons but 155mm shells are the most desired ammo of both Israel and Ukraine). They would not take my letter so we left it for an armed soldier to maybe deliver it. He said he could not take letters. Our little cortege of vehicles drove north to nearby Archbald, PA, where Lockheed Martin makes Paveway I and Paveway II bombs to blow apart children and other living beings anywhere in the world, e.g. Gaza. A security guard took the letter and likely got his ass reamed out when he took it to a superior–the Chief of Police of Archbald was there (I called his office the day before) and he seemed surprised to learn we were opposing the company that has done so much for the depressed anthracite coal valley.

Then, back in our cars and on to Endicott NY where others met us and where I used the envelope in my attempt to deliver the letter. 

We have videos of all that [see above video], and I will defend myself in court (my last time out was very expensive for attorney fees in Syracuse, where I refused to take a plea bargain like the other 31 who did outside the gate of the 174th Attack Wing of the NYS National Guard. My sentence was three months in the Jamesville Penitentiary and the biggest Community Service anyone had ever seen at 1500 hours.

This offense will not be like my other trespass times like the SOA and my trips to four federal prisons shortly after retiring as a high school Participation in Government Teacher. One U.S. Marshall said as he scanned my file, “Schoolteacher, eh. Well, we’re going to give you a lesson.” The lesson was called Diesel Therapy and I won’t get into it. 

So, maybe you can squeeze in a column on this only trial that we know going on that challenges the Merchants of Death. I’ve been in contact with Josh Paul, who resigned his position as Director of the Department of State because he said laws were being broken and he didn’t want to be part of it.

Well, we put members of the Krupp family in prison following the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-47, so let’s start looking at CEOs and others from Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and my nearby BAE Systems, who most people around here think electric buses are their only product. (96 % of BAE contracts are military.)

Jack Gilroy then added a few more details about Congress and the military-industrial complex:

Dems and Repubs are always at the war factories when a new contract is announced. What nice smiles Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have when the big bucks are announced. Schumer takes more money from the war merchants than any other U.S. politician.

And Senator Gillibrand married into a British family who are major stockholders in BAE Systems. Her in-laws sold their stock when she became a Senator (but funded her campaign with a half million bucks).

Readers, please keep Jack in your thoughts as he faces the judge today. And especially keep his words here in mind: “Nobody should profit from the slaughter of innocents. We must protest loudly and persistently, lest we ourselves become complicit in war crimes and genocide.”