Biography
Sister Carol Gilbert OP is a Dominican nun of the Grand Rapids Dominicans and longtime resident of Jonah House in Baltimore, where she lived in community with the late Sister Ardeth Platte and the late Philip Berrigan. With Platte and Sister Jackie Hudson she carried out the October 6, 2002 Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II action against a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silo near New Raymer, Colorado, in which the three women hammered on the silo cover and poured their own blood as a literal enactment of beating swords into plowshares.
A federal jury in Denver convicted them in April 2003. On July 25, 2003, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn sentenced Sister Carol — then 56 years old — to 30 months in federal prison plus three years of supervised release and $3,082 in restitution. She served at FCI Alderson in West Virginia. After her 2005 release she continued Plowshares and anti-nuclear organizing alongside Sister Ardeth at Jonah House, including subsequent prosecutions for additional civil-disobedience actions at U.S. military installations. She remains active in the Plowshares and Jonah House communities.
The Winter 1998–99 Nukewatch Pathfinder names Kathy Shields Boylan, Carol Gilbert, Ardeth Platte, Frank Cordaro and Larry Morlan as the Gods of Metal Plowshares participants who hammered and poured blood on a B-52 at an Air Force weapons display in May 1998. Their Maryland trial began September 22. The report explicitly states that all five were convicted and jailed before sentencing. January 4 was the announced future sentencing date, and a possible year in prison was exposure rather than completed service. Source: https://www.laka.org/docu/magazines/nukewatch_pathfinder/1998-4-winter.pdf#page=5
Separate March 4, 2018 brief Nevada detention and same-day release
The April 2018 Ground Zero newsletter, original page 6, individually names Carol Gilbert among twenty-four Pacific Life Community participants arrested at the Nevada National Security Site on March 4, 2018. Felice Cohen-Joppa’s report says the participants crossed the site boundary, were escorted to a nearby pen, briefly held, processed and released. This is a same-day temporary detention and release, not an overnight prison stay, a served-day sentence, or continuous custody beginning that day. No imprisonment counter or new discrete prison episode is added, and other case dates remain unchanged.
Separate documented 1986 Wurtsmith imprisonment
The December 12, 1986 report and its current-prisoner directory individually identify Carol Gilbert as actually imprisoned for repeated peace leafleting at Wurtsmith Air Force Base. The printed nominal term is eighteen-week, and the historical place is Alderson, West Virginia. This is a distinct Wurtsmith sentence-service episode, not the later sabotage/property-damage case already stored. No exact initial arrest, sentence-admission or discharge day is supplied. Directory estimates in February or April 1987 are not verified releases, and the nominal term is not converted to an actual completed total.
The Nuclear Resister No.43, December 12, 1986: Original PDF page 2 (printed page 1); Original PDF page 4 (printed page 3).
Additional original custody evidence
The Wurtsmith update individually names Carol Gilbert among five people arrested August 6, 1985 for re-entry trespass. It expressly reports that this individual actually served 5 days in jail. This completed 1985 episode is distinct from later Williams International proceedings or the 1986 Wurtsmith imprisonment. The exact later admission, sentence and discharge days are not printed; August 6 is recorded only as arrest, not assumed continuous custody until an unknown end.
The Nuclear Resister No.35, October 24, 1985: PDF page 7.
The Wurtsmith report individually says Carol Gilbert actually served five days in 1984. This predates both the separately recorded August 1985 five days and the 1986 leafleting imprisonment.
The report dates this Wurtsmith sentence to September 24, 1986. October 15 was a surrender order, not verified intake.
