After the hourlong meeting Saturday, everyone stepped outside, and Arredondo saluted and embraced the Marines.
"Whatever happened out there wasn't about them," he said afterward. "I wanted them to understand I am very, very sorry."
Arredondo and his wife, Melida, talked to the Marines about two scholarships in his son's name -- one created by the Marines and the other by Blue Hills Regional Technical School in Canton.
The younger Arredondo, a 2002 graduate of Blue Hills, was on his second tour of duty in Iraq when he died.
"I couldn't believe they were saying that to me when I was waiting for my son to call," said Arredondo, who was working on a fence in his Hollywood yard. He ran to the backyard to tell his mother and called his son Brian, 17, who lives in Maine with Arredondo's former wife, Victoria Foley.
"I got very upset. I felt like it was a bad joke or bad dream," he said. "I was crying. . . . I was calling for Alex."
Arredondo grabbed a propane torch and a gasoline can from his garage, yelled at the Marines to leave, smashed their van window with a hammer, and climbed inside.
Arredondo's mother grabbed his left hand to pull him out, and he said he mistakenly turned on the torch trying to brace himself. An explosion blew him out of the van.
The Marines put out the flames on his body. Jackson Memorial Hospital has given him a plan to pay his $43,000 bill for burns that covered 26 percent of his body.
Arredondo has visited veterans in Boston hospitals and talked to other families who have lost children in Iraq.
The family has put together more than 10 scrapbooks about his son's life and death, including a Purple Heart certificate, pictures of his 21-gun salute, and childhood drawings. Arredondo said that looking at his son's mementos is his therapy.
