And those are some of the headlines that says, Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War
and Peace Report.
I'm Amy Goodman.
Today, we spend the hour with a man who put his life on the line at least twice, once
when he served in Vietnam, and again when he came back.
It was September 1st, 1987.
Brian Wilson took part in a nonviolent action outside the Concord Naval Weapons Station
in California.
He sat down on the train tracks, along with two other veterans, trying to stop a U.S.
government munitions train from sending weapons to Central America.
The train did not stop.
Wilson lost both of his legs.
Well, Brian Wilson joins us in our studio.
He came to us yesterday.
He's traveling the country, visiting Occupy sites, where some of his fellow protesters
are also veterans.
He's also been talking about his new memoir, Blood on the Tracks, the Life and Times of
S. Brian Wilson.
On the West Coast, Brian completed much of the tour on his hand cycle.
Now he's on the East Coast.
I started by asking him exactly what happened on that day in September 1987, when he was
carrying out this act of peaceful resistance on the train tracks outside Concord Naval Weapons
Station in California.
It was a Tuesday, September 1st, 1987, and, of course, it was planned by me in advance
after spending much time in Nicaragua now, so we're witnessing the carnage of U.S. policy.
What was happening then there in Nicaragua and South Africa?
Well, of course, President Reagan had his war on—war of terror and what he called
the terrorists in revolutionary Nicaragua that was—had overthrown Samosa and the revolutionary
process in El Salvador trying to oust a very oppressive, feudalistic government.
And so he was—Ragan declared there was a Soviet beachhead being formed in Latin America,
which, of course, we all know, is absurd, just another excuse for putting down self-determination
processes in other countries.
So we knew the weapons were coming from the Concord, California, Naval Weapons Station
35 miles east of San Francisco, and we decided to go there after many efforts of trying to
get Congress to stop the funding.
This whole process of petitioning Congress, which is known pretty much an oligarchic institution,
representing corporations, we decided we would directly try to obstruct the flow of the munitions
that move on trucks and trains at Concord to the ships in Sacramento River.
And so it's a three-mile track from the bunkers to the ship.
It crosses a public right-of-way highway, and that's where we were vigilant.
We have been vigilant for three months.
Many arrests had taken place.
I had only been a jail support person, and I decided on September 1st, 1987, which was
an anniversary of the veterans' faster life of the year before on the steps of the Capitol,
that Tuvecht and I would do a 40-day water-only fast between the rails to obstruct, at least
temporarily, the movement of the train.
So I had watched these trains move all summer with flatbed cars full of crates of white
sausage rockets, 500-pound bombs, movers, millions of rounds of ammunition, and I was
just getting to the point where I said I have to at least escalate my own nonviolent
occupation, if you will, of the tracks.
And we told the base what we were doing, why we were doing it, when we were going to do
it, and asked for a meeting with the commander, and he refused.
So at 10 of 12 on September 1st, the two other vets and I took our position on the rails,
starting our 40-day water-only fast, knowing we would probably spend much of that in jail.
There was a big sign next to our vigil that said, penalty for blocking federal munitions
trains is a year in prison and a $5,000 fine, so we knew what the consequences were.
I actually—and the first train was coming just before noon, first train that day.
And the next thing I know, I woke up in a hospital four days later, I have no memory
of what happened.
Of course, I had 40 friends that were witnessing, and the other two veterans just barely got
out of the way.
The train was speeding.
The FBI, in looking at the one video, said the train was accelerating to more than three
times its five-mile-hour speed limit at the point of impact.
We found out later that the train crew that day had been ordered not to stop the train,
which was an unprecedented—basically an illegal order.
Why?
Because they said, I was going to hijack the train, which, of course, there were 350
armourines to protect the base.
There was usually local police present when we were present on the tracks.
I had never envisioned it being a dangerous action.
And then, while I was in the hospital, an FBI agent was fired, and after almost 22 years,
he was fired for refusing to investigate me and three other veterans, just domestic terror
suspects.
So, this was all shocking to me, just shocking that I, this all-American kid that grew up
in upstate New York, even though I kind of shifted after Vietnam to being a dissenter
or my father would just say a marginal person, I just never imagined this happening.
Of course, this government will do anything.
We know that.
But I would imagine it doing to people in other countries, but not to me in this country.
So it was a very interesting experience.
When you woke up in the hospital four days later, what did you understand happened?
Well, initially, I saw a lot of plants at the base of my bed, green plants, and my partner
at the time was sitting next to me, and I blurted out, according—well, this is what
I remember, my first words—wow, I'm in a jail cell with plants, and my family is
next to the bed, and my family explained to me, honey, you are in a hospital.
You got hit by the train, and I couldn't believe it.
I just couldn't believe it.
And I was watching the replay on the wall of television for several days, and we were
playing another news, and I was watching myself run over by the train, and it was like, well,
I just, like—this is what happens to people, of course, all over the world, who obstruct
the inky, mad train that's trying to repress people who want to have self-determination
or what have you.
So it was just another part of the U.S. policy coming home very personally to me, vis-a-vis.
And the day I woke up, 90,000 people showed up at the tracks and ripped up 300 feet of
the tracks and stacked up the railroad ties in a very interesting sculpture.
And from that day on, for 28 consecutive months, day and night, 24 hours a day, there was a
permanent occupation of the tracks of sometimes 200 people with tents blocking every train
and every truck.
2,100 people arrested, three people had their arms broken by the police.
This was all 24 years ago, occupation of the tracks, the police were abusive.
However, the trains, of course, did stop after that.
It's just that they had to stop and wait for massive numbers of arrests and—
Amazing.
What did you understand then, as you watched the video of yourself and the train rolling
over you?
As it rolled over you, it sliced off both your legs?
It sliced off one of my legs and mangled the other one.
I had a huge skull fracture.
In fact, I have a plate in my skull right here.
A piece of my skull, the size of a lemon, was completely dislodged from my skull and
driven into—and destroyed my right frontal lobe, which was the—which is why the doctors
were concerned that I might die in the operating room.
Brian Wilson telling his story, September 1, 1987, telling us today, as he talks about
his memoir, Blood on the Tracks, the Life and Times of S. Brian Wilson.
We'll be back with him in a minute.
