Photo by Vera Scroggins
By Jack Gilroy, April 16, 2024
At the Scranton, Pennsylvania, 155mm shell factory on Tax Day, April 15th, the gate guards would not let Veterans For Peace in (as usual) and did not accept our Veterans For Peace letter informing the staff that they were aiding and abetting criminal activity. We managed to speak to a military-looking guard who opened the gate for a car but said he could not take our letter at the General Dynamics facility.
At Lockheed Martin, 12 miles north of the 155mm factory, we drove beyond the no-entry warning with a security car and blinking lights. We drove up a long, high hill to a gate and could not enter. The gate tender said to mail the letter. He would not take the letter and told us to get off their private property.
We parked in a residential area and did photo ops at the Lockheed Martin facility. The security guard there took our letter and said he would deliver it. (He will likely be admonished by his superiors for taking the letter.) The Chief of Police of Archbald showed up wearing a bulky flac jacket, and we had a friendly conversation. Archbald has 7,500 residents.
Drivers slowed to see our signs. We don’t believe this Lockheed facility (that makes Paveway bombs used in Gaza) ever had a demonstration at their Archbald facility. We shall return.
We drove an hour or more to Endicott, NY, and had some area people show up for our attempted delivery of the VFP criminal law-breaking letter. BAE security told them to get off their property.
I walked past security (thinking they would get physical with a huge tattooed dude with arms folded in a don’t tread on me look) to the door, rang their bell, and talked to reception, asking for entry to speak to the plant manager as a representative of Veterans for Peace. As expected, there were negative responses. After a while, they refused to return my buzzer call.
I received multiple notices from the BAE security team that I would be arrested if I didn’t leave. Eventually, five cop cars with many cops wearing bulky flac jackets arrived, and I was handcuffed and sent in a paddy wagon to police headquarters and processed with a court hearing for May 1st. I expect little to come of it, but one never knows the Court’s influence on a powerful corporation that pays its people well.
Conversations with workers and law enforcement can open people’s minds to information they don’t get from CNN and NPR. Most people either don’t know they live in a death-making region or if they do know, they have their reasons to support it all.
3 Responses
Thank you for your persistence in offering the information of the death-dealing actions of these companies in our midst.
Jack Gilroy is a constant flame in the darkness of gun and ammo making big business. Many thanks for his sacrifices of time and energy trying to make us a better people in a better world.
Jack Gilroy deserves so much admiration, respect and should be awarded for his consistent, strong advocacy for peace and for revealing what we live in the midst of!! He and the groups of folks who support this work and participate are serious heroes, and include the likes of Vera Scroggins, Cecily O’Neil, the Clunes and others!