The first time I met Fr. Larry Rosebaugh he had come to visit me in the Washington, DC jail where I was locked up for demonstrating against Ronald Reagan's war policies in Central America.  I had not met him before so when this "look what the cat dragged in" looking character was sitting across from me in the visiting room I thought it was a homeless guy who had heard about our protest.  It was only then that  I discovered I was in the presence of one of the most remarkable souls to ever come along.

  Larry started down the road of compassionate resistance as a member of the Milwaukee 14-- one of many draft board raids during the late sixties that literally made potential draftees disappear by removing their files from selective service offices and burning them with homemade napalm. He spent most of his life living with the poorest of the poor on the streets in ghettos in Central and South America. While living with street kids in Recife, Brazil he was arrested and tortured. Later he was able to share his story with Rosalynn Carter who happened to be in Brazil on a humanitarian trip when she was the First Lady.  Another dramatic protest he took place in was when he climbed into a tree at Fort Benning, Georgia with Fr. Roy Bourgeoi and Linda Ventimiglia, and played a recording of Bishop Oscar Romero's last sermon before he was gunned downed, to Salvadoran troops who had come to the School of the Americas for training. All of the soldiers who heard the recording were dismissed from the army because they could no longer be trusted to follow orders.  Larry was killed in Guatemla City yesterday when he was shot to death during a car jacking. Read more about this his amazing life here in his hometown paper and in this obituary that ran in the Milwaukee Journal.