Golden Rule Peace Boat Sails Against Nuclear Armageddon

Nuclear resister Patrick O’Neill reflects on peace boat’s voyage to Kings Bay Naval Station.

Kings Bay is home port to 8 Trident submarines. Each Trident can carry 24 D-5 missiles. Trident is the most insidious and evil weapon of mass destruction ever made, I wrote on Feb. 7, 2023, as the Golden Rule entered St. Marys, Georgia, location of the Trident submarine base Naval Station Kings Bay:

The historic wooden “Peace Boat,” the Golden Rule, docked in St. Marys, where it ironically and tragically came face to face with the most diabolical “war boat” ever constructed: the heavily nuclear-armed Trident submarine. The abominable Trident literally represents the end of the world as we know it.

If deployed, Trident’s payload of D-5 nuclear missiles would cause nuclear winter, kill us and most life forms across Earth. The Golden Rule’s stop in coastal Georgia is part of its historic 11,000-mile voyage of the “Great Loop,” and is an effort to educate people about the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the possible use of nuclear weapons.

On April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s assassination, I joined six other Catholic pacifists in an attempt to symbolically enflesh the prophet Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.”

After cutting a lock, we entered Naval Station Kings Bay with hammers, baby bottles of blood and crime scene tape to expose Trident as a weapons system that has no right to exist.

Once inside Kings Bay, in an attempt to smash an idol [glorified mockups inside the entrance], I hammered and poured blood on a cement statue of a D-5 missile. The government charged the seven of us with three felonies (depredation of government property, destruction of government property, conspiracy) and misdemeanor trespass. We were all subsequently sentenced to federal prison.

I was joined by Fr. Steve Kelly, S.J.; Elizabeth McAlister (widow of the late Catholic antiwar prophet, Philip Berrigan); Martha Hennessy (granddaughter of Catholic Worker Movement founder Dorothy Day), and Catholic Workers Mark Colville, Clare Grady and Carmen Trotta.

Our act of faith led us to address the sinfulness of nuclear weapons. We live in a world where nuclear weapons on perpetual hair-trigger alert have become “normal.” Since the onset of the U.S. proxy war with Ukraine a year ago, the prospect of nuclear weapons being used has moved the clock to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest we’ve ever been to Armageddon.

We should take to heart the warning of Dr. King: “The choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or non-existence.”

In addition, an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations — but not the United States or the world’s other eight nuclear weapons states — voted to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a landmark international agreement that outlaws nuclear weapons and establishes a pathway to nuclear disarmament.

The Kings Bay 7 are parents of 20 children. We want to assure a nuclear-free world for the generations to come. Humans must turn away from war-making, and find ways to embrace nonviolent solutions to international conflicts.

We should take to heart the warning of Dr. King: “The choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or non-existence.”

The Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat made a peaceful pass by the Kings Bay Naval Station on Saturday, Feb.11. On board were Captain Jan Passion, Crew member Art Roche and Project Manager Helen Jaccard, and local activists who have long been organizing for nuclear abolition and peace.

The Golden Rule is sailing north on its “Great Loop” voyage to 100 US towns and cities. See the full schedule. For more information, to make a much-appreciated tax-deductible donation, or to apply to join the Golden Rule crew, please visit vfpgoldenrule.org.