Carlos Arredondo made national news when his son Marine

United States Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

 Lance Corporal Alexander Arrendondo, 20 years old, was killed in An Najaf, Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 during his second tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom on August 25, 2004. Later that day, on Carlos Arredondo's 44th birthday, the Marines' Casualty Assistance Team arrived at the Arredondo home in Hollywood

Hollywood, Florida

-Demographics:As of 2000, there were 59,673 households out of which 24.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.2% were non-families. 34.4% of all households were made up of...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 to notify him of his son's death. The Marines had not brought a chaplain

Chaplain

Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

 with them and notified him in the front yard of his home. After close to 30 minutes during which Mr. Arredondo requested for the Marines to leave, he became extremely upset and agitated.

According to Arrendondo's account, at this point he called his son's Marine recruiter on the phone:

"My head full of confusion, asking myself what's going on, what's going on, I pounded the hammer hard into the ground, then went behind a tree to cry when I think to call Alex's recruiter, Sergeant Martinez. I have his telephone number in my phone. I call him, explain that I'm Alex's father and ask him to please help me, the Marines are telling me Alex has died. The voice on the other side say, "Sir, sir, you've got the wrong number. I look and the phone say "Sergeant Martinez." Pretty sure it was Sergeant Martinez's voice. I call him back again, and again he hung up on me."

After some time went by and the Marines refused to leave, according to news reports, Arredondo was so distraught, that he climbed in their van and splashed himself with gasoline. A propane torch he'd brought inside was lit, Arredondo says accidentally.

Arredondo was pulled out to safety, however his clothes caught fire and burned 26% of his body. He received second- and third-degree burns. He was hospitalized in a burn unit for two weeks followed by out-patient home based treatment. Despite his burns, he attended his son's funeral

Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

 on a stretcher with two paramedics at each side.

Arredondo, who was an immigrant from Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

, had no insurance and was self-employed working as a handyman. His story made national and international headlines. His recovery took over a year.

Since that time he apologized to the Marines for his drastic actions. He was not prosecuted.

Arredondo along with his wife Melida is a member of Gold Star Families For Peace whose mission states:

We as families of soldiers who have died as a result of war are organizing to be a positive force in our world to bring our country's sons and daughters home from Iraq, [and] to minimize the human cost of this war...

They have also formed an organization called People United for Peace. He is now an anti-Iraq War activist and has speaking engagements around the country speaking about his personal tragedy and to parents about the methods recruiters use to enlist youth. He especially works to reach out to the Spanish-speaking community.

On December 12, 2006, Arredondo became a U.S citizen, with the help of U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy

Ted Kennedy

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

.

External links

• Father who burned self after son's death becomes citizen, article in Boston Globe
• http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/25/father.ablaze/CNN Report on Arredondo's self-immolation
  Self-immolation
  Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...
  
  ]This may be disturbing to some readers.
• Video on Carlos Arredondo's story
• People United for Peace website