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Moral Courage & The Story of Sister Megan Rice
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Daily Good
Posted: October 20th, 2014
http://www.dailygood.org/story/857/moral-courage-and-the-sto...
The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oakridge, Tennessee, is supposed to be impregnable. But on July 28th 2012, an 84 year-old nun called Sister Megan Rice broke through a series of high-security fences surrounding the plant and reached a uranium storage bunker at the center of the complex. She was accompanied by Greg Boertje-Obed (57) and Michael Walli (63). The trio ... sat down for a picnic. When the security guards arrived they offered them some bread. Two years later, Rice, Walli and Boertje-Obed were sentenced to federal prison terms of between three and five years, plus restitution in the amount of $53,000 for damage done to the plant - far in excess of the estimates produced at their trial. When questioned about her actions at her trial by Judge Amul Thapar, Rice told him that her actions were intended to draw attention to the US stockpile of nuclear weapons that she and her co-defendants felt was illegal and immoral. They also wanted to expose the ineffectiveness of the security systems that were supposed to protect these weapons from theft or damage. We were acutely mindful of the widespread loss to humanity that nuclear weapons have already caused, wrote Rice afterwards in a letter to her supporters, and we realize that all life on earth could be exterminated through intentional, accidental or technical error. Our action exposed the storage of weapons-making materials deliberately hidden from the general public. All three defendants were found guilty of sabotage of the national defense. Just before they were sentenced, Rice made a statement to the court which ended like this: We have to speak, and were happy to die for that. To remain in prison for the rest of my life is the greatest honor that you could give me. Please dont be lenient with me. It would be an honor for that to happen.
Note: If you would like to receive copies of Sister Rices letters to her supporters, please email [email protected]. Mailing addresses for Sister Rice and her co-defendants can be found here and here. You can also sign a petition requesting their pardon.
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