Officials say the man's violent response to news of his son's death in Iraq left them stunned.
By Associated Press
Published August 27, 2004
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - The training of three U.S. Marine sergeants given the task of telling families when loved ones are killed did not prepare them for Carlos Arredondo's reaction.
In his grief upon being told - on his birthday - that his Marine son was dead, Arredondo set the sergeants' government van ablaze and seriously burned himself.
When 1st Sgt. Timothy Shipman and his two team members told Arredondo that his 20-year-old son, Lance Cpl. Alexander Arredondo of Randolph, Mass., had been killed in combat in Iraq, Carlos Arredondo simply snapped, police say.
As the Marines tried to console him Wednesday afternoon, he walked into his garage and picked up a propane tank, a can of gasoline and a propane torch. He smashed the van's window, got inside and set the vehicle ablaze, despite pleas from the Marines to stop.
The Marines, reservists who are members of a military Casualty Assistance Calls team, pulled Arredondo, 44, from the burning van and extinguished the flames on him. None of the Marines was injured.
"Just like training for combat, you train for 98 percent of the things that you might face," said Maj. Scott Mack, a unit leader at the Hialeah-based scout and antitank platoon of the 8th Tank Battalion. For everything else, he said, "you rely on instinct."
Military officials could not recall a similar reaction from a bereaved relative.
"They range in emotion from stunned silence to crying and weeping," said Gunnery Sgt. Kristine Scarber, a Marine spokeswoman. "As far as we know, this is the first time anyone has ever been violent."
Mack said Arredondo, an immigrant from Costa Rica, had been upgraded Thursday to stable condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital, with burns over 26 percent of his body. Arredondo's wife, Melida, told Marine officials he was doing "much better."
The Marines will not press charges in the van's destruction "out of compassion and sensitivity" to Arredondo, Mack said.
Shipman said his focus was on the Arredondo family.
"The Marine Corps is small. You lose a Marine, everyone feels the pain," he said.
Neighbors described Carlos Arredondo as friendly and helpful. They helped clean up debris from the charred street and put his tools in his shed.
An American flag was draped over a bush, and a small shrine had been set up by the front door, including a photo of Alexander Arredondo in uniform and a vase holding pink and white carnations. Family members did not answer the door or return phone messages. Melida Arredondo, who is Alexander's stepmother, said Thursday on ABC's Good Morning America: "This is his scream that his child is dead. The war needs to stop."
The Defense Department confirmed Thursday that Arredondo died in Najaf, Iraq. He was assigned to the Marine Corps Base in Camp Pendleton, Calif.
