Nuns Return To Weld Co. Missile Silo 15 Years After Arrests

New Raymer, CO -- Two Baltimore Catholic nuns on Saturday revisited the Weld Co. Minuteman III missile silo where they were arrested 15 years ago at a civil disobedience protest. In 2003, Dominican Sisters Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson were sentenced to between 31-41 months in federal prison for trespassing on the N8 Silo in 2002, where they poured vials of their own blood on the rails leading to the silo and drew crosses on the silo's hatchet door.

Fifteen years later, Platte, 81, and Gilbert, 70, arrived in Colorado and Wyoming to deliver the copies of the United Nations' recently ratified Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Hudson died in 2006.

At the N8 silo site, on a windswept hill near the Pawnee National Grasslands Saturday, the nuns proved they were still hell-raisers. The two swung open the cow gate and marched to the locked fenced perimeter of the silo. They slid a rolled-up copy of the UN treaty into the gate latch.

"Now they can't say they didn't get it," Gilbert said.

Watch the nuns on Facebook Live:

Both sisters worked as advisors to Nobel Peace Prize-winning group Geneva-based "ICAN" (The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) to assist with the preparation of the treaty. They said they were happy and surprised when ICAN won the Nobel Prize Friday.

But ICAN and the new UN treaty have been attacked by nuclear-armed nations who say they will boycott the treaty. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens called ICAN "dangerous" and "another tediously bleating 'No Nukes' outfit."

Last week, at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Warren Commander Col. Stephen M. Kravitsky declined to give them an audience, but they were told they could leave the document with the public relations department.

As tensions rise with more nuclear aggression from North Korea, speakers warned that fear of nuclear attacks is a good excuse for the Pentagon and US Air Force to ask for more money to be spent on nuclear weapons.

Platte told the gathered group of three dozen people that now is the time to bring back the focus on the nuclear arsenal buried under the ground in Colorado, because the US Defense Department is pushing to replace and update the 45-year old missile fleet, at a cost of between $62-$85 billion and already the Air Force is awarding multi-hundred-million-dollar awards to defense contractors such as Boeing, Northrup Grumman and Raytheon.

The N8 silo wasn't the nuns' first protest. They were arrested several other times on Air Force property, in 2000 and 2001, each time marking weapons or aircraft with their own blood.

At the meeting Saturday, Platte recalled her arrest at the missile silo in 2002.

"[The guards] had us face down, on the ground and it was a very cold morning. And they held their guns on us," she said. "But we were there teaching them, look, you can never be part of this. You can't kill men women and children."

When the Air Force slapped the nuns with a claim for $3,080 in restitution, the women said they were itinerant and had taken the Dominican order's vow of poverty. They then spearheaded a food donation drive for military family members on food stamps, but the delivery was turned away by the Air Force. The food ended up at Denver Rescue Mission.

In 2008, when the nuns had been released from prison, the ACLU helped them protest their inclusion on a Maryland state "terrorist roster."

Platte inspired a character in the Netflix series Orange Is The New Black -- the character of Sr. Jane Ingalls, played by Beth Fowler.

At the missile silo Saturday were the producers of a documentary "Conviction" that documented the nuns' arrests and subsequent trials.

See Trailer below:

Also at the gathering was Patrick Malone, one of the original late 1970s Rocky Flats protesters, who camped in a "teepee on the tracks" leading into the now-decommissioned Rocky Flats nuclear trigger manufacturing site. Boulder-based Beat Poet Alan Ginsburg reportedly also camped in the teepee. Malone said he was arrested 10 times for protesting at Rocky Flats.

Regis College, sophomores Sarah Sawtelle, Tess Greco and Madeline Medina and Emily Marshall made the trek from Denver. "We heard them speak in our class and decided to come today," said Sawtelle.

The sisters will speak in Colorado Springs next week.

Image: l-r Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert speak at Weld Co. missile silo Oct. 7. Patch photo.