Biography
Martin Holladay was a carpenter from Sheffield, Vermont, and the son of three-time Plowshares activist Jean Holladay. Acting alone on Feb. 19, 1985 he entered a Minuteman II missile silo at Whiteman AFB near Odessa, Missouri, damaged the silo lid and electrical boxes with hammer and chisel, poured blood, and spray-painted "No More Hiroshimas." When the alarm-response team arrived with automatic rifles he assured them, "Don't worry, I'm unarmed." He later became a well-known building-science writer.
1985–1986 custody dates checked against participant sources
Art Laffin dates the action and arrest to February 19, 1985 and reports denial of bond and detention through trial. Incarceration therefore began with that arrest, not sentencing. His chronology dates sentencing to May 16, 1985. These correct the older one-day-earlier arrest and sentence entries.
The biographical note accompanying the firsthand “Armenian Journal” by Martin Holladay in the October 1991 Friends Journal confirms February 19 arrest and release in September 1986. Laffin says release followed the September 24, 1986 sentence-reduction hearing. The older August 31 endpoint is unsupported and has been replaced with month precision, bounded September 24–30. September 1 is a storage placeholder, not an asserted release day. Approximately nineteen months is a firsthand duration, not a nineteen-month sentence.
Sources: Art Laffin participant chronology, Plowshares Number Twelve; Friends Journal, October 1991, Armenian Journal, printed page 28. The publisher PDF was indexed with the relevant biography but direct download returned 403, so no visual PDF-page inspection is claimed.
Exact release established by a newly located prison letter
The month-only release above is superseded by the firsthand letter in The Nuclear Resister 42. Holladay recounts appearing before Judge Elmo Hunter on September 24, 1986, an immediate release order, and walking out of the courthouse about an hour later. This establishes actual physical release on September 24, not just a hearing date. The complete original page was rendered and visually checked.
Source: The Nuclear Resister 42, October 30, 1986, printed page 5 (PDF page 7), Martin Holladay Released.
Separate 1983 episode and contemporary limits
The original Groton article names Martin Holladay as arrested June 20, 1983 during the USS Georgia canoe protest. It reports him still held at New Haven Correctional Center when Jean Holladay was released June 30; Martin would not promise to return. Actual multi-night confinement is established, but there is no printed physical discharge. A fall release in the directory is projected only. This earlier Connecticut case is separate from his 1985–1986 Missouri imprisonment; no continuous interval is created between them.
The Nuclear Resister No.18, July 7, 1983, original pages 1, 3.
Contemporary 1983–1984 custody evidence
Martin Holladay was arrested at the Pentagon December 28, 1983, then arrested again December 30 and this time held in custody. The article distinguishes the earlier released arrest from actual later remand. It reports a one-year sentence with six months suspended and lists him at Lewisburg Federal Prison Camp. June 1984 is only the directory forecast, not actual discharge or six completed months. This distinct Pentagon episode is not his 1983 Groton or 1985 Missouri custody.
The Nuclear Resister No. 23, February 12, 1984, original PDF 2 / printed 1, The Nuclear Resister No. 23, February 12, 1984, original PDF 4 / printed 3.
In his first-person Armenian Journal, Holladay identifies Danbury federal prison as the location of his imprisonment following the February 1985 Missouri nuclear-missile action. This adds the missing location without changing existing custody dates or counting his later voluntary work in Armenia as exile.
Parole forecast is not actual discharge
The report describes a February 24, 1986 parole hearing at which Martin Holladay’s offense severity was reclassified and twenty months added to an anticipated parole date, then projected for June 1989. This was a forecast, not actual imprisonment through 1989. His separately documented September 24, 1986 actual release remains unchanged. No extra custody episode is created for an internal parole decision.
The Nuclear Resister No.38, March 10, 1986, original PDF pages 6,7.
