Biography
Acting as the Harmonic Disarmament for Life action (Aug. 16, 1987), he cut down three ELF poles and damaged control boxes at the ELF transmitter site near Clam Lake, WI (with Helen Woodson named as co-conspirator from prison).
Plowshares anti-nuclear political prisoner born December 22, 1954 in Freeport, New York. Lived in community at Jonah House in Baltimore. On August 16, 1987, he entered Project ELF, the U.S. Navy's first-strike trigger for nuclear submarines in northern Wisconsin, poured his blood, cut three transmission poles, and notched the center pole, shutting down the system for 29 hours. Convicted under Wisconsin's sabotage statute and sentenced to 33 months; parole was denied for not having served sufficient time for punishment.
Separate original case and parole-return custody
The Plowshares movement chronology reports arrest August 16, 1987, sentencing February 12, 1988, first release in September 1989, return to jail October 2, 1989, and actual release January 30, 1990. The existing two rows duplicated the original prosecution. They now distinguish the original case from the later parole-return episode. The latter's 120 elapsed days are only that stay, not lifetime imprisonment. The ELF transmitter was the protest site, not a prison, so its institution link is removed from the custody row.
The indexed original autobiographical entry in Can't Jail the Spirit distinguishes a prospective September 2, 1989 mandatory release from an August 22, 1990 maximum discharge. Neither scheduled date proves actual discharge. The old August 22 physical-release field and unsupported initial prison-admission assumption are removed. First actual release is retained as September 1989 in the chronology; the date field remains blank until its custody sequence can be represented without automatically counting time outside prison. Exact initial admission and first release day are unresolved.
Sources: Plowshares History, Harmonic Disarmament for Life entry; State v. Ostensen, original May 2, 1989 opinion, confirming the original prosecution and one-count conviction; Can't Jail the Spirit, indexed original Ostensen autobiographical entry (scheduled dates, not proof of release). Movement chronology is the source for actual episode endpoints; the court opinion does not independently establish those dates. Existing photograph retained.
Two separate completed five-day protest imprisonments
The Georgia nuclear-train report individually names Joe Cohen, Mark Reeve, A.B. Short, Steve Clemens, Tom Kline, George Ostensen and Katy White as arrested at Montezuma in May 1985. It explicitly states all seven spent five days in jail before release on bond, later pleading no contest for time served. Exact May arrest and physical release days are not supplied. This is not the February 1986 overnight train blockade described separately in the article. The Griffiss update individually names George Ostensen, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Shirley Lockwood and Brian Barrett as refusing fines following their January 23, 1986 trespass convictions and actually serving five days in jail. Their Thanksgiving 1985 arrest is not assumed to be continuous imprisonment until January. Exact first admission and actual discharge days are not printed. The convictions and future sentencing of the four re-entry defendants are separate; Suzanne Schmidt paid her fine and is not assigned this five-day stay.
The Nuclear Resister No.38, March 10, 1986, original PDF pages 4,7.
The original firstOctober1988 edition of Can’t Jail the Spirit individually prints George Ostensen with historical prison register 186466-A. Root reviewed the named original biography and mailing address. This fills a blank historical register; it does not imply present-day imprisonment or replace a current photograph.
The chronology reports twenty-seven months of imprisonment following Ostensen’s 1987 prosecution, including later custody not separately allocated in this summary.
