Robert Romer - 1972: Vietnam War Protests at Westover Air Force Base

I never got arrested on the Amherst Common. We had a vigil. I spent a lot of time Sunday mornings, silent vigils protesting the Vietnam War on the Amherst Common. The only time that I've ever got arrested were for sitting down on the road in front of Westover Air Force Base, which is—what?—ten, twenty miles from Amherst. In the spring of '72 at the time of the bombing of the Hanoi Harbor and a group of us, motivated by a Quakers—I'm not religious, I'm not even a Quaker—but I decided to go and join the protest at Westover Air Force Base, and commit civil disobedience. We were protesting the escalation of the war in Vietnam by blocking the entrance to Westover Air Force Base and, I actually did it twice. I wasn't with the very first group who did it. The first time I went and deliberately joined the civil disobedience, there was about six or ten of us I think. It was a cold, rainy day, early May, I think, and as I say, there were not very many of us, and we walked out into the road in front of the main gate at Westover and sat down. And that was a little scary because there weren't that many of us, as I said, and one side was the gate with MPs with unpleasant–looking guard dogs; on the other side there were workers in their cars waiting to get into their shifts, and we were blocking the road. There was always possible that one of them would say, "The hell with these peaceniks" and step on the gas and run over some of us. And it was also cold. I got arrested and charged with Disorderly Conduct, which wasn't true, and Disturbing the Peace, which was kind of ridiculous 'cause I wasn't—I mean, that was the whole idea—I wasn't disturbing the peace; I was trying to help bring it. And Obstructing a Public Highway—well, I could hardly deny the latter, so...Anyhow, they stuck us on a bus, they took us down to the police station, they finger printed us, they put us in a jail cell for a few hours, and then some nice man who volunteered to be our lawyer came and got us out. I didn't even spend the night in jail, but, it was pretty peaceful. I've never been arrested before, or since. I was arrested again the next week, but, except for those two occasions, that's the extent of my criminal record. And, you know, they were only misdemeanors.

And the second time was much more of a circus, as there was—this had been building up during the intervening week, and then the president of Amherst College decided to join the protest and there were quite a few hundred Amherst College faculty and students, and we all went down and sat together and that was not scary at all cause there was so many people. But it was the same thing, put on a bus, we caused a lot of trouble for the Chicopee police. Some of us actually wrote some checks to the Town of Chicopee to help defray their extra police costs afterwards and then, when it came up in court, both times I was charged with Disorderly Conduct, Disturbing the Peace, and Obstructing a Public Highway, and since two of the three things I was charged with I didn't do, and one I did, I deci[ded to]—compromise, I pleaded guilty once, and I pleaded "no lo" once and I think I was fined $10 or something and, it sounds kind of light–hearted now, I guess. I didn't think of it that way at the time—even if there's no risk involved and even if it's something like sitting down on a highway with no risk at all, there's something symbolic about deliberately breaking the law and being willing to pay the penalty, which might have been a month in jail, or it might have been a serious fine, or it might be nothing, and, don't really know, but there's something symbolically important. It's not something you do lightly, even if it's a misdemeanor, which it, without a serious penalty, something important about doing it.