alex's father carlos

and his legacy. he's right. we are seeing our sons and daughters off but we are not allowed to see the ones coming home in boxes and those coming home with pieces missing (both physically AND mentally). we will be feeling this for GENERATIONS

(i remembered carlos' initial story from the news. i didn't know what he was now doing)

Father Turns his Grief into Action


by Amy Goodman

The United States is entering the fifth year of its violent, failed occupation of Iraq, longer than the U.S. was involved in World War II. Through the grimly deepening quagmire, a strengthening, pervasive U.S. anti-war movement is emerging. An increasingly powerful voice comes from soldiers and their families, turning grief into action. Take the Arredondo family.
On Aug. 25, 2004 -- Carlos Arredondo's 44th birthday -- a U.S. Marine van arrived outside his house. He thought that his son Alex had managed to come home from his second deployment to Iraq to surprise him. Instead, the Marines informed him that Alex had been killed in action in Najaf.
Carlos lost his mind. He asked, he begged, the Marines to leave. He pleaded. They didn't leave, so he ran to his garage and grabbed a hammer, gasoline and a blowtorch. He began pummeling the van. He climbed in, pouring the gasoline. His mother, distraught and wailing, tried to pull him from the van. The blowtorch accidentally sparked, and Carlos was blown from the van into the yard, in flames.
Then his wife, Melida, arrived. She saw her husband burning. Carlos' younger son, Brian, 16, in Bangor, Maine, saw the incident on television. Thatwas the day he learned that the brother he loved and emulated was dead. ..........