Biography
Vern Joseph Rossman was a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister and a member of Beacon Hill Friends Meeting. He participated in the Griffiss Plowshares action on November 24, 1983. He was convicted of destruction of government property and conspiracy, but acquitted of sabotage, and sentenced to concurrent three-year terms. An original newsletter identifies him at Danbury as 01266-052; the official BOP locator gives February 26, 1986 as his federal custody endpoint. The ministry's memorial refers to a November 2006 memorial service; October 10, 2014 is its republication date, not his death date. The exact death day remains unresolved.
Original identity bridge and verified federal endpoint
The appellate opinion identifies the November 24 action, judge and concurrent terms. Nuclear Resister 026, physical page 2 dates sentencing July 16 and reports actual jailing, without an admission day. Democratic Left, page 23 supplies the prisoner-number identity bridge used in the official lookup.
Friends Journal, physical page 6 expressly identifies Rossman facing the camera with Daniel Berrigan and Dean Hammer. The complete page was visually reviewed; image reuse permission remains unresolved, so no asset is installed. The ministry memorial does not support the former 2014 death date.
Initial Griffiss custody ended December 12, 1983
The Thanksgiving at Griffiss report individually names Vernon Joseph Rossman among seven resisters who entered Griffiss Air Force Base on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1983. All seven were initially held on an Air Force bus, then remained in Syracuse City Jail until their December 12 arraignment, when they were released on their own recognizance. This establishes an initial eighteen-elapsed-day interval, not continuous custody through any later July 1984 sentence or final federal discharge. The next court appearance in January was future and not a release date. All existing later proceedings and endpoints must remain separately preserved.
The Nuclear Resister No22, December 16, 1983, original page 3.
The May 15, 1985 Friends Journal author biography places Vern Rossman at Danbury Federal Prison serving the sentence for the Griffiss action. The structured verdict preserves conviction for property destruction and conspiracy and acquittal of sabotage. Publication is not treated as an admission date.
Halfway-house phase before the federal custody endpoint
The December 9, 1985 and January 20, 1986 Nuclear Resister directories individually list Vern Rossman at the Correctional Alternatives Center in Lawrence, Massachusetts, expressly identified as a halfway house. Thus he was already in a halfway-house phase by those issues, rather than necessarily still physically inside Danbury prison through the separately verified February 26, 1986 federal custody endpoint. Neither directory prints his prison-to-halfway-house transfer day. The official federal endpoint remains unchanged; no exact prison-exit day, additional episode, continuous prison interval or numeric custody total is inferred from these status reports.
The Nuclear Resister No.36, December 9, 1985, original page4; The Nuclear Resister No.37, January 20, 1986, original page4.
