Carlos Arredondo is best known for saving a life during the Boston Marathon bombing. But the story begins a decade earlier with the death of his own son, Alex, in the Iraq war.

In 1980, Carlos left his homeland Costa Rica for the American Dream. In 2004, three Marines came to Carlos's house to inform him that his oldest son, Alex, had died in Iraq. He entered their military van with a can of gasoline and a propane torch and the van exploded into flames. Carlos's extreme grief over Alex's death launched him on a journey to honor his son and fight for the America he believed in. He sought solace in sharing Alex's story and advocating for the war to end. He became a well known, if unorthodox, peace activist and then a central figure in Occupy Boston. Publicly Carlos had a new purpose. Behind the scenes the story was more complex. More than a decade after Alex's death, the tragedies of war continue to affect thousands of other families in the United States, the Middle East and the rest of the world.