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Carlos Arredondo
Carnage is the only word to use about the scene that unfolded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday. Two bombs designed to inflict the maximum amount of damage for their size were detonated in a venue guaranteed to be filled with television cameras, international flags, vulnerable people and participants from many lands.
It doesn’t matter whether it was one of the criminal groups whose name we already know, a lone malcontent, or some new group seeking publicity, it was a heinous act.
We best preserve civilization by immediately looking to the good, the humanity, the acts of bravery, courage, and selflessness. Striking out blindly serves nothing. The day will come, with good investigation and determination, to bring about justice. But we’ll decide the terms, not criminals.
For now, our minds are filled with the love and care shown by those who rushed to rescue their fellow human beings. An ex-professional football player. All the police, paramedics, and firemen. A medical tent intended for patients suffering from exhaustion or heat stroke pressed into service for casualties.
People burst out of their homes throughout the city to embrace the runners, offering jackets, water, a sofa to sleep upon, a guest room, a ride to “anywhere a car goes.” We should celebrate these wonderful acts of kindness.
We should look to one another with a greater sense of humanity as well. Remember that life is what we make it, not what criminals, thugs and cowards want to cower us into. We decide. The good far outnumbers the bad. They plea for attention with their horrific acts, but they will never win. They will never achieve their cause unless we become like them. And so today, we embrace others with the warm power of humanity and concentrate on the good that was done to help, to care, to save.
The day will come when justice is met, fairly, by the rules, publicly, before a court of law so that all can see. And on that day, too, we demonstrate the difference between civilization and barbarism, between firm resolve and cruelty.
But for now, we embrace each other, pick ourselves up, and carry on today and tomorrow. There’s something to be said about the British stiff upper-lip in times like this. A Scottish friend emailed me a comment supposedly heard in England during the IRA troubles: “I’ve been blown up by better bastards than this.”
We’ve got the upper hand as long as we embrace the good, decent side of humanity.
Dispatches from Merida 
Carlos Arredondo, above, holding a tourniquet around a man’s leg.
Has anyone heard his name? Carlos was born in Costa Rica and went to the US many years ago as an undocumented worker, married and had two sons.
One son, Marine Lance Corporal Alexander Arrendondo, lost his life in Iraq in 2004.
Out of his mind with grief, Carlos doused himself with gasoline and set himself afire before being tackled. Since the day he left the hospital with 20% of his body covered in burn scars, Carlos traveled the country educating people about the real effects of war in Iraq and the sacrifice his son gave.
In 2006, Edward Kennedy was able to get Carlos citizenship. Carlos’ other son, Brian, having never been able to reconcile the loss of his beloved brother, took his own life in 2011. Since that day, Carlos has worked to educate everyone who would listen about suicide.
After all that tragedy and loss in a country that didn’t want him, Carlos never gave up. Did he know that he was desperately needed?
Yesterday, Carlos Arredondo was at the Boston Marathon as bombs went off. Always a man of action, he leapt into the destruction.
He placed a legless man in a wheelchair, clamped his femoral artery by hand, wheeled him to paramedics at an ambulance and went back for more. That man’s life was saved by Carlos’ fast action. He saved others too, making tourniquets from clothing he tore at the scene, as did many other rescuers, some professional and some simply people who were there. All those people did what was necessary.
Carlos did all that yesterday in a nation that didn’t even want him for decades. That’s the wonderful side of humanity and selflessness. Carlos is a real human being.
(hat tip to elmaji for bringing this story to my attention)
Your post and comment about Carlos Arredondo strike a chord in me. I believe there are so many good people who do the right thing every day, So why are so many evil deeds perpetuated? Could it be because it is the misguided faction that does all the talking? As peace-loving people we have to make our voices heard and stop arms proliferation. The idea that owning a weapon will keep us from harm is ridiculous. The way to protect ourselves is with a just world society. We have a long way to go, but we won’t get there if we don’t even start.
My belief is that the most misguided people are normally the loudest and most cruel. Advocates for the arms industry only spread misery. They allow people to be killed for the sake of their own profits, which is as close to evil as there is.
I know folks in the US who “went out and bought a gun” after 9/11 even though they lived 1000 miles from New York. As though the criminals were going to target them personally. Or that a pistol could stop an airliner. “Terror” only succeeds if we allow ourselves to be terrified and react in that way. Don’t be afraid and they don’t win.
London during the Blitz was a thousand times worse than anything the US has experienced internally since the Civil War, yet England carried on and people did their daily jobs.
You’re right: the best way to protect ourselves is by building a just culture, civilization, and society. Part of that is shutting out the blowhards and listening to voices of reason. Sadly, blowhards have been yakking so long, they’re accepted as normal by too many good folks.
In a former home, all neighbors worked together to make a 400 home neighborhood safe and secure without guns. Everyone accomplished that by caring about each other, knowing each other, and knowing when people were home or gone and who lived there. It wasn’t anything fancy: just old time neighborliness. Start next door and build out.