Rosemead Marine dies in Iraq

Mark Keppel High grad killed in roadside blast

By Jason Kosareff
Staff Writer

ROSEMEAD - Robert Arellano said Wednesday his brother Carlos may have known he wouldn't return home from Iraq.

Carlos Arellano, a Marine corporal, had survived two previous tours of duty in Iraq, although he was wounded on the second.

But Carlos seemed different before he left his family's Rosemead home for his third tour, his brother said.

"I think Carlos knew he was going to die this time," said Robert Arellano, 27, a Marine of nine years.

Cpl. Carlos Arellano died Friday when a suicide bomber in a car set off a blast in Haqlaniyah, Iraq, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Also killed in the blast was Lance Cpl. Brandon Dewey, 20, of San Joaquin.

They were both assigned to 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, out of Camp Pendleton. During the Iraq War, their unit was attached to 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

Funeral arrangements for Arellano are pending.

Carlos wasn't afraid to die, Robert Arellano said. But the young soldier was getting tired of the fighting. He worried about his mother and family back home, his brother said.

Carlos Arellano joined the Marines in 2003, a year after graduating from Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra. He was in combat during all three tours, his brother said.

During his second tour, Arellano won a merit promotion for taking out an insurgent aiming a rocket-propelled grenade launcher out of a hotel window.

On that tour, Arellano's team was caught in three days of intense fighting, cut off from food and water, Robert Arellano said. He was also wounded by shrapnel from an RPG.

Arellano would have been home from Iraq in March and was scheduled for discharge in June.

He was planning to go to college to study criminal justice.

Arellano joined the Marines to get the tactical training for a job as a SWAT officer for the Los Angeles Police Department, said another brother, Marco Arellano, 25.

The brothers, along with youngest sibling Gustavo, 18, reminisced around the kitchen table Wednesday.

They remembered Arellano as outgoing, extremely popular and athletic, fearless.

The brothers pored over photographs of Arellano, many sent from the front lines, featuring local people, Iraqi men, women and children.

"His favorite times were when children would come out to wave at him," Marco Arellano said.

Arellano, born in Mexico, grew up in Rosemead. He attended Emerson Elementary School and Garvey Intermediate School. He is survived by his brothers and his father, Robert Arellano Sr., and mother, Emelia Arellano.

jason.kosareff@sgvn.com

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