Gold Star Dad's Mission Complete – Photo Ban Lifted

Gold Star Dad's Mission Complete – Photo Ban Lifted

Arredondo's own son Lcpl. Alexander Scott Arredondo, USMC was killed in Iraq at age 20 in 2004. Alex had commented to him how it seems like the US public was unaware of the war. "Dad, it seems like the public just wants to go shopping but don't care about the sacrifices of the wounded or deceased men and women who serve" Arredondo remembers his son saying the last time he was home.

So a year after Alex was killed, Carlos decided to do something about it. At first he made a small coffin and draped it with a US flag and put it on a hand wagon that he would walk around the City of Boston or drive in the back of his pick-up.

One day, a Cambridge funeral director noticed and spoke to Carlos. The funeral director was so moved by Arredondo's story that he gave him a military style coffin and the appropriate flag to drape over the coffin. "This gift I believe was a message from Alex" says Arredondo. He felt that he was following Alex's wishes to speak out on behalf of the fallen so that they would not be forgotten.

Since the beginning of 2006, Carlos Arredondo has visited over 20 states driving with the flag draped coffin in the back of his pickup truck flagrantly displaying what the US government refused to be shown.

Over time, the pick-up truck became a traveling memorial to Alex. Carlos put pictures of Alex on the truck as well as a copy of a memorial square sign that the City of Boston had bestowed and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Gold Star family license plate.

Arredondo believes lifting the ban that will now show the caskets at Dover is important. "It is essential to honor the fallen and comprehend the human costs of war that the nation has paid" Arredondo says. He adds that "the wounded and fallen troops and their families have been treated as invisible and forgotten for far too long."

Carlos Arredondo is Gold Star Father to Lcpl. Alexander Scott Arredondo, USMC (08/04/84 - 08/25/04). Alex was born in Boston, MA and was killed in action in An Najaf, Iraq.

Lance Corporal Alexander Scott Arredondo. Her stepson. He was killed in action in Iraq on August 25, 2004. Five years ago to the day that Sen. Kennedy died.

“I just can’t believe it,” Arredondo said.

Kennedy met with Arredondo four times after her stepson’s death. On the last visit, her husband Carlos told the senator about a memorial scholarship they founded at Alexander’s high school. A few weeks later, they received a letter in the mail that Arredondo still keeps in a protective plastic sleeve in her desk.

Scars Define the Man Who Burned Himself After Son's Death in Iraq

Washington Post Staff Writer

BOSTON -- Another day of trying to recover.

Once again, Carlos Arredondo, whose reaction to the death of his son became one of the iconic images of the Iraq war, is reading the last e-mail he received from him. "I'm in najaf," the e-mail from Marine Lance Cpl. Alexander Scott Arredondo begins, and those three words are enough to make a 44-year-old father once again feel as though he is on fire.

Every bit of Arredondo's skin is coated with antibiotic cream. His left palm has glass in it from when three Marines informed him that Alex was dead and he began smashing the windows of their van. His lower legs, which received the worst of the burns from when he splashed gasoline in the van and ignited it, are stained the color of cranberries. His hair, cut off in the hospital, is only now starting to grow back. His fingernails, ruined when he used his hands to claw holes in Alex's grave for flowers, are all gone.

The worst of Arredondo's injuries were on his legs, to which he applies antibiotic cream. Twenty-six percent of his body was burned. (David Finkel -- The Washington Post)