"His child is dead and the war needs to stop"

ABCNews:

Melida Arredondo said her husband, Carlos Arredondo, immediately fell apart when he saw three Marines approaching his home.

"My husband immediately knew that his firstborn son had been killed," Arredondo said on ABC News' Good Morning America.

The three Marines showed up at Arredondo's home to inform the family that Lance Cpl. Alexander Arredondo, 20, had died Tuesday in Najaf.

What happened next shocked the Marines and Arredondo's neighbors.

After getting the news, Carlos Arredondo walked into the garage, picked up a propane tank, a lighting device and a can of gasoline. He then proceeded to set the Marines' van ablaze while he was inside.

"I went to pieces and my husband, as you know, went to pieces and basically tried to accompany his son," Melida Arredondo, Alex's stepmother, said.

The Marines were eventually able to pull Carlos Arredondo from the burning vehicle. While they extinguished the flames that had engulfed him, the distraught father still suffered burns over as much as 50 percent of his body....

"This was his scream that his Chi-Chi — that's what he called Alex — this is his scream that his child is dead and the war needs to stop," she said.