On Friday three Roman Catholic nuns were sentenced to up to almost three and a half years in prison for damaging property at a nuclear missile silo in Colorado last fall. The nuns, 55-year-old Carol Gilbert, 68-year-old Jackie Hudson and 66-year-old Ardeth Platte broke into the missile site. They walked up a Minuteman III silo, swung hammers at the weapons and painted a cross on the structure using their own blood. They talked about turning swords into plowshares. [ See archived Democracy Now! coverage]

A day after the sentencing, hundreds of people took part in vigils and protests spread across at the 49 Colorado missile sites and at three missile sites in Nebraska. At one base, protester drove up carrying signs that read “Citizen Weapons Inspector.” A plane also flew over another site carrying a sign reading, ’’We found the weapons of mass destruction here in Colorado.”