In the late 1980s, Vietnam veteran Brian Willson sued the U.S. government after being maimed by a Navy munitions train during a protest against U.S. wars in Central America. During trial preparations, the U.S. attorney subpoenaed and deposed several of us who had been at the demonstration or were involved in local organizing. Thus began an 18-month ordeal focused on what we viewed as improper government information-gathering, which came to a close only after Willson reached a settlement in his case.

In my sworn deposition I willingly shared my experience of that horrendous day. But when the interview turned to questions about the internal operations of the organization I worked for at the time — The Pledge of Resistance — I respectfully refused to answer. I was asked for details about how the organization operated, its membership, its meetings, and about the people who attended them. Supported by two lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, I declined to respond. I felt that sharing this information would potentially have a chilling effect on our community and our campaign — would people come to meetings if they knew that data about them might end up in a government file? The trust and solidarity that nurtures so much organizing could be jeopardized.

Even more significantly, I felt that the government wasn’t entitled to this information. The Pledge had a long history of nonviolence training and nonviolent action. There was no basis, so far as the legal case was concerned, to gather this kind of material. We feared that it could be used, then or in the future, for political purposes. Surveillance of the Central America peace movement was not uncommon — 60 movement offices were reportedly broken into during those years — and we had concerns that the information ...

Today we spend the hour with a man who put his life on the line twice: once when he served in the Vietnam War and again when he came back. On September 1, 1987, Brian Willson took part in a nonviolent political action outside the Concord Naval Weapons Station in California. He sat down on the train tracks along with two other veterans to try to stop a U.S. government munitions train sending weapons to Central America during the time of the Contra wars. The train didn’t stop. Willson suffered 19 broken bones, a fractured skull and lost both of his legs. "Before, I had spent many months in Nicaragua in the war zones, and I had been to El Salvador talking to guerrillas and talking to human rights workers. Understanding incredible extent of murders that were going on and maimings and displacements cause of fear of being murdered," Willson said. He decided, "I have to at least escalate my own nonviolent occupation, if you will, of the tracks." In retrospect, Willson added, "I regret that I lost my legs, but I don’t regret that I was there. I did what I said I was going to do... Following orders, I discovered, is not what I’m about." Today, he is traveling the country visiting solidarity protests with Occupy Wall Street, 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 Willson." On the West Coast, he completed much of the tour on his handcycle.

Partial Transcript:

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 ...