In 2004, the Arredondo family lost 20-year-old Alexander to the war in Iraq.

Seven years later, Lance Corporal Alexander Arredondo’s father has been struck with another devastation, as he now has to bury a second son.

When Alexander was killed in action in Iraq, his younger brother Brian struggled with depression and drug addiction. Never fully recovering from the loss of his brother, Brian took his own life just before Christmas on December 19, 2011.

Carlos Arredondo, 51, the boys’ father told the Boston Herald, ‘We are broken hearts.’

At just 24 years old, Brian took his own life just as the last troops in Iraq were being brought home, something his father had hoped for for many years.

On August 25, 2004, Carlos was met in his front yard by a van carrying Marines. They informed him that his son had died while serving his country. It was the father’s 44th birthday.

Since Alexander’s death, the Costa Rican-born father has been a vocal anti-war proponent and has seen holding his son’s belongings and photos in protests outside the White House, in New York, and various other cities around the U.S.

Brian was buried next to his brother in Walpole’s Rural Cemetery after his funeral at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish on December.

Though it is not clear why Brian took his life now, his stepmother believes it may have been to the fact that the troops were finally being brought back from Iraq, but his brother would not be among them.

Alexander was recruited for the military right out of high school. He is said to have joined in order to pay for college. Sadly, after finishing basic training in California, he would be deployed to Iraq in 2004 and never return.