Bill Bichsel
Biography
Bill Bichsel was a Jesuit priest from Tacoma, WA ('Bix'); one of the Disarm Now Plowshares five who on Nov. 2, 2009 cut into Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, WA, reached the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific, hung banners and hammered fences. (Action is title-only on the chronology page; details from public record.)
Father William J. 'Bix' Bichsel SJ was an American Jesuit priest, founder of the G.I. Joe Catholic Worker House in Tacoma, Washington, and one of the founding figures of the Pacific Northwest anti-nuclear movement. He spent six decades organizing against the U.S. Trident submarine base at Bangor on Hood Canal — home to the largest concentration of nuclear weapons in the United States — and against the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was arrested more than thirty times for civil-disobedience actions, beginning in the 1980s.
In the early hours of November 2, 2009, Bix — then 81 years old — and four other Catholic activists (including the late Anne Montgomery RSCJ, Susan Crane, Steve Kelly SJ, and Lynne Greenwald) cut through three security fences and entered the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, where the U.S. Pacific fleet's Trident D-5 nuclear warheads are stored. They reached the inner perimeter, where they hung banners, scattered sunflower seeds, and waited to be arrested. The action became known as the Disarm Now Plowshares. The five were charged with conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property, and depredation of government property. After a December 2010 trial they were convicted by a federal jury in Tacoma. Bix was sentenced in March 2011 to three months in federal prison plus four months of home confinement.
In 2010 he had also served three months at FCI Marianna for an SOA Watch border crossing at Fort Benning. He died on February 28, 2015 at age 86. Father Bill 'Bix' Bichsel SJ was an American Jesuit priest, peace activist with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington, and one of the most consistently arrested U.S. anti-nuclear and SOA Watch activists. He was sentenced to twelve months in federal prison in connection with the September 29, 1997 SOA sign-altering action at Fort Benning. He served at FPC Sheridan, Oregon. Bichsel later participated in the November 2, 2009 Disarm Now Plowshares action at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and died in 2015.
On September 29, 1997, five activists — Father Bill Bichsel SJ, Sister Marge Eilerman OSF, Ed Kinane, Mary Trotochaud, and others — altered the entrance sign at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. The five were tried in October 1998 in federal court in Columbus, GA and sentenced to 8 to 12 months in federal prison. Held at Federal Prison Camp Sheridan, Oregon (Unit 5, BOP register 86275-020) for participating in the School of the Americas Watch annual line-crossing protest at Fort Benning, GA.
The Eleventh Circuit’s June 25, 1998 account names Bichsel and De Benedette as participants in both November 15 and 16, 1995 protests at Fort Benning, while expressly noting that they did not join the seven-person appeal. The first day involved leafleting and removal from the base; the second involved a commemorative demonstration and arrests. The original thirteen defendants were convicted of trespass, with a collective two-to-six-month sentencing range. This source does not supply Bichsel’s individual term or completed custody duration. Source: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/19968586.OPN.pdf#page=6
The July 2013 Ground Zero newsletter individually names Bill Bichsel 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
Custody phases corrected October 12, 2026: HistoryLink's documented Bichsel biography distinguishes March 28–June 24, 2011 Plowshares imprisonment from the separate Y-12 sentence imposed September 12, 2011 and served November 10, 2011–February 9, 2012. The Nuclear Resister's contemporary November 10 report confirms his surrender to SeaTac for Y-12 and the separate home-detention obligation. The duplicate legacy summary's 829-day uninterrupted interval is unsupported and cleared. The detailed Plowshares release is June 24, not the formerly recorded June 28. No initial protest detention or home-detention discharge is inferred from these prison endpoints.
Calculation follow-up October 13, 2026: The earlier blanket clearing of the day total was too broad for this completed custody interval. Both recorded endpoints are source-verified full dates; the supported elapsed-day total is retained. This does not count bail, later supervision or unrelated custody. Sources already verified for the corrected dates: source; source.
Earlier line-crossing sentencing context distinct from sign alteration
Lorraine Krofchok’s January 21,1998 trial report, printed in the May 1998 newsletter on original page3, individually quotes this defendant in the Fort Benning line-crossing proceedings. It reports six-month terms and $3,000 fines in the collective sentencing account, with twenty-two to go to jail alongside three previously sentenced. This is not the separate September 1997 SOA sign-alteration prosecution currently recorded with a later 1998 prison phase. The article’s subsequent twenty-person March 23 reporting roster does not include this name; its common intake date must not be copied here. A remark in a collective sentencing report is not by itself a physical-prison admission or proof of a completed six-month term. No actual release, individual exact sentence date, new jail interval or numeric counter is inferred.
Grandmothers for Peace International, May 1998 newsletter, original pages 3–4.
The Pardon Attorney’s April 15, 1998 letter says Bichsel, Eilerman, Kinane and Trotochaud had not yet begun the November 1997 protest sentences while awaiting sentencing in another case. It is therefore unsafe to copy the other defendants’ common March 23 intake date onto these four. Mike Lowry’s October 21 letter distinguishes the September 1997 sign-alteration prosecution and reports that their six-month line-crossing terms were ordered consecutive to the sign-case terms. A clemency request is not a grant, and nominal consecutive sentences are not proof of an equivalent amount of actual service.
Mike Lowry’s October 21, 1998 letter specifically states that William J. Bichsel began federal imprisonment September 28, 1998. It describes an aggregate imposed term of one and a half years, comprising the sign-case sentence and the consecutive six-month line-crossing term. The actual intake date is not October 1. No new separate served period is added for the consecutive count, and the previously recorded release endpoint is preserved.
