It's almost the saddest father/son story I've heard, but I think this one either just squeaks it out, or comes in a close second.
CARLOS ARREDONDO: Yeah. That day was my 46th birthday and -- my 44th birthday. I was in Hollywood, Florida, and I was expecting the phone call from my son Alexander who -- he never missed a call for my birthday, and pretty much I was outside my house, waiting for my wife to come home to celebrate my birthday. My mother was at the house.
And the next thing I know, three U.S. Marines, a casualty team, came to my house. And they pretty much parked in front of my house. And for a moment I thought it was a surprise from my son Alex. I thought he was home. And the next thing I know, they are out telling me my son Alexander, Lance Corporal Alexander Arredondo was killed in Iraq, and no scripts for that kind of news. No scripts for that kind of situation. I pretty much spent almost a half-hour asking three different times the U.S. Marine team to leave my house. They never was prepared about the situation. They never asked me to come inside the house. They never supported me or helped me mentally, because I run around the house. I asked three different times to leave my house, and they still not leave my house.
My second time that I attempt to leave, I walk out with a hammer, five pound hammer, to pretty much ask them to leave my house, otherwise I’ll destroy their van, and still nothing happened. My third time, almost half-hour later, I asked them to leave my house. And at that time, you know, I walk out with five gallons of gasoline, a propane torch, and I started destroying the U.S. Marine van that was in front of my house with a hammer and destroy everything, threw everything all over the place and poured it with gasoline and then opened the gas -- propane torch, and which the van blew up with myself inside. Luckily I was near the driving side door, which explosion threw me out to the street on fire, and I get 26% of my body burned. And I’m still suffering that consequences, but I've been speaking --
AMY GOODMAN: Your mother had tried to pull you out of the van before it lit, and that set off the torch in your hand?
CARLOS ARREDONDO: That's correct. My mother was the whole time, was at the door screaming and yelling for help. And she doesn't speak English, but she was yelling so loud, you know, anybody can -- for the help that she was asking, nobody was around. The Marines was in the same spot the whole time. When I tried to reach the driver's side door, because the fumes of the gasoline was very strong, I cannot breathe, pretty much, that's when my mother reached into my hand and pulled me -- tried to pull me out. That's when I pressed the button which ignited the flames. That's when the explosion occurred.
AMY GOODMAN: And at that point -- as we turn to your wife, Melida -- at that point, Melida, you were just pulling up in the car?
MELIDA ARREDONDO: That's right. I had just turned the corner to the house, and I saw ahead something on fire, and I was perplexed. And I thought it was a house, and then I approached. I saw was a van. Then I realized the van was in front of my home, and then on the other side of the street I saw my husband with a Marine sitting on top of him, and my husband was burned.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened next?
MELIDA ARREDONDO: I pulled up. I tried to stop the car right in front, but the Marine said to me, "No, no, no! Go! Go! The van’s going to blow! The van's going to blow!" So I had to drive the car to the corner and then run back, and the van did blow two or three times. And as I approached Carlos, the thing that I noticed the most was his skin. He also had a shirt over his eyes with the Marine on top of him. The shirt was like over his head. And I tried to relax Carlos as much as possible, saying, "Relax, relax. Okay, calm down, calm down."
And finally, the Marine let go, and we got the shirt out from over his head, because my husband couldn't really breathe very well between the pressure and the smell of the smoke and everything. He did have some smoke inhalation. And at that point, we were surrounded by helicopters, press, ambulances, fire trucks, neighbors. It became sensational within seconds.
My mother-in-law said, "Here, here, the phone. It's Brian. It's Brian." She said it in Spanish. And Brian is my younger stepson, and he was with his mom in Maine during that period. And he asked, “Where is dad?” And I said, “Oh my God, Brian! Oh my God! Turn on the TV! Turn on the TV!” He did. He said, “What's going on? There's dad! There's dad!” It was being shown live in Maine, as it was all around the country. And I'm saying to him, “Yes, your father lost it. He couldn't deal with it, you know. Alex is gone and -- I’m sorry, Brian.” He said, “Well, I --“ Brian was basically almost crying, and he said, "Well, I called to wish dad a happy birthday."
AMY GOODMAN: And Brian then was seventeen years old?
MELIDA ARREDONDO: At that time, he was sixteen.
AMY GOODMAN: Sixteen. We're talking to Melida and Carlos Arredondo. Two years ago, Carlos's son, Melida's stepson, died in Najaf in Iraq. That was two years ago, Carlos. After that, what happened? Did you start speaking out right away? How long did it take you? And how long has it taken you to heal physically? And then we can talk about emotionally.
CARLOS ARREDONDO: Well, it pretty much, you know, it took some time, you know, just to deal with the mourning and with Alexander's death and also the issue about me not being an American citizen. I am a legal resident, and so I was trying not to get in trouble with that issue, because I might be deported. At the time when I was in the hospital, I thought I was going to be ended up in Guantanamo, because, you know, I pretty much targeted a U.S. government property.
And all that was taken care. I am still speaking out pretty much. Almost a year later, we started speaking out. And when the 2,000 casualty, whose name was Alexander also, that's when pretty much I put together my display that have been going across country, bringing to cities and towns, to Washington, to the
http://www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=06/09/06/1359237
Good point Charver.