Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76Plough Quarterly • Winter 2015 71 York State prisons including Attica. Paroled in 1981, it didn’t take long before he resumed his old life. He later recalled: I knew it was only a matter of time before I was dead. I felt like blowing my head off, but I knew that a true soldier dies with his boots on and never by his own hand. One day I went in des- peration to my parole officer and told him to lock me up again. To give him a reason, I laid the pistol I was carrying on his desk. Instead of sending me back to jail, he directed me to the Bowery Mission in Manhattan, a Bible-based program to help people find purpose in life and a new chance. Though he wasn’t a Christian, he told me, “Maybe here you will find what you are looking for.” He gave me some money for the taxi ride; I used it for a bottle of wine, and walked. On the way I stopped at a small church where, sitting in the chapel, I was suddenly overcome with despair and wept tears of pain for the first time since I was a child. Something happened to me in that church. I ended up staying several years at the Bowery Mission. After seven years at the Bowery Mission, Larry joined the Bruderhof community in upstate New A t the age of twenty-four, Larry was drafted into the United States Army in 1967. He was looking for purpose. Having spent most of his childhood on the streets and in and out of state institutions, he had married young and had two daughters before the relationship fell apart. Now the army took six years of Larry’s life, including three years in Vietnam where Larry saw combat. Some memories he shared with us; most of them not. He later would say: “I killed, and I saw people killed. I got caught up in the war spirit, and kept re-enlisting until in 1974 they told me, ‘You’ve had enough, go home.’ But I had no real home; normal society had nothing to offer me anymore.” The military gave him an honorable dis- charge but declared him “mentally unfit for assimilation.” Larry didn’t disagree with this assessment. He returned to the streets, dealing drugs and living for a while in an improvised army-style camp on Staten Island with other homeless veterans. In 1977 he was convicted of robbery and attempted murder, serving four years of a ten-year sentence in a range of New L i v e s Soldier of the Lamb W H A T I L E A R N E D F R O M L A R R Y J A S O N L A N D S E L The prophet Isaiah appeared in our previous issue, hammering a red-hot sword into plowshares in the “Forerunners” column by artist Jason Landsel, which features men and women of God through the ages. The model for this striking portrait of Isaiah was Larry Mason, a friend of Jason’s who is a Vietnam veteran, graduate of the streets of New York City, and brother in the Bruderhof community. When Larry was diagnosed with aggressive cancer in September, Jason was working on artwork for this page. He set the project aside to care for Larry, who had adopted Jason’s family as his own. In place of a painting, Jason sent us this reflection in honor of his friend, who died on October 23. Photographs provided by author