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On December 28, 1987, the feast of the Holy Innocents, Marie Grunke, a Blessed Sacrament Sister of Newtown; Joanne Merrigan and Anthony Gwyther, both of the St. Francis House, Darlinghurst; boarded the USS Leftwich during a public inspection while it was anchored in Sydney Harbor. The USS Leftwich is a nuclear-capable destroyer of the Spruance class recently deployed in the Persian Gulf. Recalling the innocents that were killed by King Herod and those children that continue to die from war and hunger, they poured their own blood on an ASROC anti-submarine nuclear depth charge launcher and a Tomahawk cruise missile launcher, weapons of first-strike capability. They hammered on these weapons to begin their disarmament and initiate their conversion into instruments of peace. After leaving their action statement on the ship, they were escorted off without being arrested or charged. |