Greg Boertje-Obed
Biography
Greg Boertje-Obed is a Catholic pacifist and anti-nuclear activist best known for the 2012 “Transform Now Plowshares” breach of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. Alongside Sr. Megan Rice and Michael Walli, he cut through fences, reached a highly secured uranium-related facility, painted messages, and splashed human blood as a symbolic indictment of nuclear weapons production. The group waited to be arrested, explicitly treating prosecution as part of the act’s moral logic.
He was convicted on serious felony counts, including sabotage, and received a 62-month federal sentence. A federal appeals court later overturned the sabotage convictions, leading to his release and resentencing on lesser property-damage convictions—an outcome that became a high-profile example of courts narrowing the application of sabotage law to nonviolent protest at defense sites.
Catholic Worker, peace activist and U.S. Army veteran. With Sister Megan Rice and Michael R. Walli, breached the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on July 28, 2012 — cutting fences and crossing into the heart of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, hanging banners reading 'Swords into Plowshares: Spears into Pruning Hooks' and splashing baby bottles of human blood on the walls. Convicted May 2013 of sabotaging the national defense and damaging federal property; sentenced February 2014 to just over five years in federal prison. The sabotage conviction was vacated on appeal in May 2015 and he was resentenced to time served.
Before his later Y-12 action, Boertje-Obed took part in the January 6, 1987 Epiphany Plowshares action at Willow Grove Naval Air Station. Reporting under the name Greg Boertje identifies him as a former Army serviceman from Baltimore. It describes three mistrials, the third declared July 15, 1987, and a fourth trial still ahead. The source does not establish completed jail time for the reported contempt citations. Source: https://merton.bellarmine.edu/files/original/217a22e7feceeb8e66c2c6d1609f0ee7b8b5d8b5.pdf#page=5
The Paschal 2023 Catholic Peace Fellowship Philadelphia newsletter reports participation in the January 28, 2023 Chestnut Hill College discussion following a screening of The Nuns, The Priests and The Bombs. The profile identifies him with a Duluth Catholic Worker community and says his first Plowshares participation was the 1985 Trident II Pruning Hooks action in Rhode Island. It describes subsequent submarine and battleship protests and substantial imprisonment, without further admission or discharge dates. Source: https://www.cpfphila.com/ARTICLES/2023_May/2023-05-Paschal-CPF-Newsletter.pdf#page=8
Missing initial detention review October 13, 2026: Original Nuclear Resister issue 167, page 1, rendered and visually inspected, documents immediate Blount County booking after the July 28, 2012 action. Patrick O'Neill's original September 13 report and direct interview individually establish continued detention from July 28 and actual September 11 release. This initial detention is added separately from the existing post-verdict May 2013-May 2015 imprisonment.
February 1986 verdict and intervening freedom
The Trident II Pruning Hooks report names Greg Boertje, John Heid, Roger Ludwig, Sheila Parks, Suzanne Schmidt and George Veasey as convicted February 4, 1986 before Judge Thomas Needham of possession of burglary tools, trespass and malicious destruction of property. It expressly says all six were free pending future March 31 sentencing. Thus initial April 1985 detention and later sentenced custody cannot be counted as one uninterrupted interval. Greg’s brief courtroom lockup ended when trial resumed, not a separately established multiday stay. Any existing separately verified later sentence and actual discharge must be preserved; this issue alone supplies neither a first later admission nor final discharge.
The Nuclear Resister No.38, March 10, 1986, original PDF pages 6.
Earlier White House detention and confirmed January 1985 release
The January 23, 1985 Nuclear Resister report from Jonah House identifies Greg Boertje in a White House peace-banner protest on the Saturday after the Holy Innocents observance. After arrest, he spent the weekend in jail and underwent psychological questioning before physical release on personal recognizance late on January 2, 1985. A January 23 appearance on an unlawful-entry charge was still forthcoming. The preceding Pentagon citation ended in release and is not treated as the same uninterrupted detention. The report does not separately print a jail-admission date or establish a complete numeric custody total; neither is inferred. Catholic Peace Fellowship’s account of its 2023 panel explicitly identifies Greg Boertje-Obed as a participant in the 1985 Trident II Pruning Hooks action, providing the historical identity bridge to the earlier name.
The Nuclear Resister No. 28, January 23, 1985, original PDF page 6 (printed page 5); Catholic Peace Fellowship, Paschal 2023 newsletter, pages 7–9, especially page 8.
Additional original custody evidence
The Trident II Pruning Hooks update individually names Greg Boertje with Roger Ludwig and George Veasey as beginning the seventh month of actual imprisonment after refusing release conditions. This verifies prolonged initial pretrial custody, but a seventh month in progress is not seven completed months or a fixed day total. No unprinted physical admission or release is assigned. The later February 1986 report confirms an intervening period of freedom before sentencing, so this is not continuous custody through a later term.
The Nuclear Resister No.35, October 24, 1985: PDF page 4; PDF page 7.
1985 Trident II pretrial confinement at ACI
The December 9, 1985 Nuclear Resister directory individually lists Greg Boertje at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, Rhode Island, awaiting trial for the April 1985 Trident submarine disarmament action. The January 20, 1986 issue individually moves Greg to its previously-listed, recently-released list. This establishes a distinct actual pretrial confinement and a release by the latter issue, not a measured continuous April-to-January interval. Neither a first jail-admission day nor a physical-release day is printed; release year cannot safely be narrowed to 1985 rather than early 1986. The existing separate White House detention ending January 2, 1985 is not this Rhode Island episode. The later February 1986 verdict while free does not supply a new jail intake or the end of this earlier stay. The Catholic Peace Fellowship organizer’s 2023 biography explicitly links Greg Boertje-Obed to the 1985 Trident II Pruning Hooks action.
The Nuclear Resister No.36, December 9, 1985, original page4; The Nuclear Resister No.37, January 20, 1986, original page4; Catholic Peace Fellowship, Paschal2023, original page8.
The original individually names Greg Boertje among the six Trident II Pruning Hooks participants arrested April 18, 1985 and held on $18,000 bond. The existing Greg Boertje-Obed identity and case bridge this shorter spelling. Fill the initial custody phase only; later custody and bail gaps remain separate.
Nuclear Navy Plowshares trespass and property-damage prosecution, USS Iowa. Six months imposed July 22, 1988. Actual pretrial jail since April 3; final release and full duration unknown.
