Cape Cod Crusader

Unforgotten Hero: A Father's Memorial visit at Boston Common

 The clear-eyed letter from January 2003 reads, in part: "I am not afraid of dying. I am more afraid of what will happen to all the ones that I love if something happens to me. Soon enough I will be in the desert, outside the City of Bagdad [sic], in full combat gear, ready to carry out my mission, wondering how this all happened so fast..."

Alex was the 968th U.S. soldier killed in the war. It took the family nine months to get any details about his death; about a year ago, they received an e-mail from a Marine sergeant explaining that the young lance corporal's battalion had come under fire in Najaf. After a three-hour gunbattle, as Alex prowled through a four-story hotel, a bullet caught his temple. He was 20 years and 20 days old.

Read the rest of the story here:

http://momfromhlwdflorida.blogspot.com/2006/07/my-friend-my-neighbor-carlos.html

I didn't make it in time for the peace rally at the Boston Commons on Saturday, October 11, but instead I attended a silent protest of a greiving father who morns for his fallen son, U.S. Marine Alexander Scott Arrendondo,who was stationed in Iraq.  The photos you see were taken and hung inside a tent, a shrine for his son Alexander. As I entered the tent and looked up at the large photographs, I was suddenly consumed with the horror of this war.   The messages of the photos  filled me with raw emotion of the reality of this tragedy.  As I stared into the face of a fallen hero, I was quickly reminded of my own son, not much older than the young boy who stared back at me in the glossy photo.  I was humbled by this experience and extended my sympathy to a grief strickened father in search for peace and an end to this war that took his son.  I recalled hearing about this man who burned a van after hearing the  news of his son's death.   Carlos has severe burn scares on his legs and chest, a reminder of that terrible  day when he got word of his lost hero.