After Marines arrived at a mans house to inform him of his sons death in Iraq, the man tried to set their van on fire.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/25/fat...laze/index.html

After Marines arrived at a mans house to inform him of his sons death in Iraq, the man tried to set their van on fire.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/25/fat...laze/index.html

Wow, I guess he didn't take the news well at all.

He DID set it on fire, and got inside it!! At least that's what I saw on the news. And the @$$hole news cameras got footage of the man burnt and going into shock and showed it on tv.

After Marines arrived at a mans house to inform him of his sons death in Iraq, the man tried to set their van on fire.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/25/fat...laze/index.html

Wow, I guess he didn't take the news well at all.

Melida Arredondo told CNN-affiliate WFOR, "My husband did not take the news well."

 

His wife agress.

They keep talking about how he burned the van, what he was actually doing was committing suicide in their van.

Melida Arredondo told CNN-affiliate WFOR, "My husband did not take the news well

 

Ya think?

Too bad the dad didn't focus on how much we are helping the Iraqi people who love us so much for it.

This belongs in the Darwin Awards section. Sorry to sound so cold, but didn't he have a clue that this COULD happen, what with his son in the Marines and all. I understand that you cannot fully be prepared to lose a child, but with a child in the military, and in a combat zone, shouldn't he have thought about this possibility a little bit beforehand? It looked like he was trying to kill himself in that fire. What a coward.

This belongs in the Darwin Awards section.  Sorry to sound so cold, but didn't he have a clue that this COULD happen, what with his son in the Marines and all.  I understand that you cannot fully be prepared to lose a child, but with a child in the military, and in a combat zone, shouldn't he have thought about this possibility a little bit beforehand?  It looked like he was trying to kill himself in that fire.  What a coward.

Sometimes your kids do things you cannot stop, like enlisting in the service. You are assuming he supported his son's enlistment, he may not have.

They keep talking about how he burned the van, what he was actually doing was committing suicide in their van.

Saw that on Antiwar.com. The media, from the sources I've seen today aren't saying that he tried to torch himself in the van. But unfortunate truth is that's how he got all the burns on his body...trying to commit suicide by burning himself alive in the van.

 

From antiwar.com

"This is his scream that his child is dead. The war needs to stop," Melida Arredondo, who had rushed home from work when she heard the news, said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

 

The military had informed her husband that his 20-year-old son, who is Melida Arredondo's stepson, died Tuesday in Najaf, family members said. The father then walked into the garage, picking up a propane tank, a can of gasoline and a lighting device, police Capt. Tony Rode said. He smashed the van's window, got inside and set it ablaze, despite attempts by the Marines to stop him, Rode said.

The first version I read on CNN mentioned he got inside and the military couldn't stop him. I guess the conservative media is taking over and hiding the man's protest.

This reminds me of in the Vietnam (I think) war the Buddhist monks who would burn themselves alive as protest...

This reminds me of in the Vietnam (I think) war the Buddhist monks who would burn themselves alive as protest...

You are correct, it was Vietnam and one of the most memorable photographs of the war.

 

 

I believe the 4 images that burn the sharpest in my mind from Vietnam are

 

1. Street execution

2. Fleeing, naked children

3. Monk suicide

4. Kent Stake, woman holding protestor