FERNANDO SUAREZ DEL SOLAR

On March 27, 2003, in the week following the second invasion of Iraq, a Marine Corps sniper advanced across a plowed field just south of Baghdad – part of an expeditionary force moving relentlessly northward to capture the city.

Lance Corporal Jesus Suarez del Solar blends into the surrounding darkness as he moves stealthily forward.

Eight thousand miles away, Fernando Suarez del Solar drives to a print shop where he works before going to his second job as a cashier at a local 7-Eleven store in Escondido, Calif.

It was 8:10 a.m. when his cell phone rang.

"Tell them to get out of here!" his wife Rosa screamed. "Tell them to get out of here!"

Fernando turned his car around and raced home.

As he pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex he spied the source of his wife's delirium. Three Marines, in dress blues uniforms, stood rigidly outside the door where his son, grandson and daughter-in-law lived with Rosa and himself.

"I don't want them to come in!" Rosa screamed hysterically at Fernando. "I don't want them to come in!"

"What is it you want?" Fernando asked the Marines, afraid of the potentially painful answer.

"We're waiting for Jesus' wife," one of the Marines said.

A short balding man with a heavy mustache, Fernando had to stretch to grasp the lapels of the Marine.

"You are going to tell me what happened to my son!" Fernando yelled into the Marine's face.

The young soldiers huddled and whispered to one another. One emerged to face Fernando.

"Your son is a hero," the Marine said. "He died last night in a battle inside Iraq."

Rosa collapsed in Fernando's arms, sobbing and hitting him at the same time. "You killed my son!" she cried. "You killed my son!"

Before moving to the United States, Fernando and his family lived in Tijuana. They often traveled north of the border to shop and visit with friends. In a shopping mall in Chula Vista, Jesus spoke with a military recruiter who sparked his interest in becoming a Marine. But Jesus could not enter the Marine Corps while living in Mexico. So in 1997, Fernando moved his family to Escondido and enrolled Jesus in high school. He graduated in June of 2001 and enlisted in the Marine Corps with the opportunity of applying as a U.S. citizen. It was August – a month before 9/11.

After the Marines left his home, Fernando began making funeral arrangements and obtaining travel authorization for relatives living in Mexico to come to the United States.

Rosa remained inconsolable over Jesus' death, but Fernando took solace in his belief that his son had died in battle pursuing his dream. Fernando understood from military sources that Jesus had died quickly, from a shot to the head.

But the small comfort began to erode with a phone call from a reporter at the San Diego Union Tribune who said he had information that Jesus had been killed by "friendly fire."

Bob Woodruff, an ABC News reporter embedded with Jesus' unit, contacted Fernando with yet another story that Jesus had not been killed in battle, but by an unexploded U.S. artillery shell while on patrol. [Woodruff later suffered serious head injuries near Baghdad when his was attacked on January 29, 2006. Woodruff was recently released from the hospital and continues to rehabilitate as an out patient near his home].

The military notified Fernando that Jesus' body had been delivered to the mortuary in Escondido. When Fernando arrived he found a Marine Corps guard at each end of the casket.

"I would like some time alone with my son," Fernando told the Marines and insisted they leave.

Desperate to determine how his son died, Fernando pulled a chair towards the door and leaned it up against the doorknob to ensure the privacy he would need for the next hour, and with a quiet sigh, opened the lid and began to undress his son.

Fernando removed Jesus' entire uniform and found his son was missing three of his right toes, testicles and right hand and there was obvious trauma to his abdomen. But there was no sign of injury to his head as he had originally been told.

A few days after the funeral, Fernando returned to work at his two jobs. But news media from the U.S. and Mexico arrived at his workplace for interviews while peace activists sought him out for speaking engagements across the country. Finally, his employers could no longer tolerate the media interruptions at their business or Fernando's absence from work attending protest speeches. They told Fernando to make a choice – either stop his crusade or quit.

But it was too late for Fernando to turn back and, with financial assistance from local organizations and businesses, became an international spokesman against the war.

Fernando gave his first speech on Memorial Day following Jesus' funeral in Balboa Park, San Diego. He was the keynote speaker for the United for Peace and Justice in Chicago and traveled to Iraq to meet with Bob Woodruff at the site where his son was killed. He eventually visited eight countries, along with scores of schools and organizations, to speak out against the war.

But Fernando's greatest feat against the war was achieved at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.

Fernando traveled to New York City hoping to make a protest against the war, although he was unsure what form that protest might take. He carried a small piece of folded cardboard tucked under his arm as he paced in front of the convention center. Suddenly he ran into a friend from one of his speaking tours.

"Would you like to go inside?" she asked rhetorically, and gave him a press pass.

Fernando, who has been mistaken for resembling an Iraqi, passed through three sets of security checkpoints and into the convention center. He was finally stopped at a room full of monitor screens showing activity on the convention floor. He could go no further. Disappointed, he retraced his steps.

As he walked back out onto the street he passed the television satellite trucks broadcasting news from the convention to the rest of the world. One of the stations was from Mexico that also covered Fernando's actions in the United States.

"Mr. Suarez, how are you?" one of the media reporters shouted.

"Not so good," Fernando lamented. "I tried to get into the convention center, but this pass will only get me to a room of television monitors."

"That's because you need this pass," the reporter smiled as he showed Fernando the laminated ticket around his neck. "Go ahead, take it."

Fernando again went through all the check points and suddenly emerged onto the conference floor. To his astonishment he was just 30 rows from the stage, as Laura Bush was giving a speech, and 15 rows from the Texas delegation and former president George H. W. Bush.

Fernando looked around, unsure exactly what to do. He was at the center of the political machine that he insisted was responsible for taking the life of his son. And he was afraid.

Slowly Fernando opened the cardboard sign under his arm. On one side was a picture of his son Jesus, and on the other the words, "Bush Lied, My Son Died!"

Fernando said nothing. He raised the sign high above his head with both hands and slowly turned in circles. One of the delegates saw the sign and rushed up to him.

"Get out of here, you idiot!" the man shouted as he tried to take the sign.

Fernando continued to maneuver the sign so the man couldn't reach it, turning and arching his back, pushing the man away with his belly.

Soon, security officers approached and Fernando lowered the sign and folded it back under his arm.

"What is wrong?" one security guard asked.

"Look at the sign!" the delegate yelled.

Fernando took the sign out from under his arm and folded it so only his son's picture was showing.

"Do you have identification?" the security officer asked.

"Right here," Fernando said, showing him the press pass.

"No, No," the delegate said. "Look at the rest of the sign!"

Fernando unfolded the entire sign.

"My son died for the First Amendment. Are you going to arrest me?"

"No, we're not going to arrest you. But you have to move out of the aisle because everyone is moving to the lobby."

Fernando moved into the lobby with the rest of the conventioneers and held his sign over his head as the delegations passed. Fernando stood in the same spot for almost two hours, holding the sign in the air. As the delegates finally left the convention center at the end of the day, Fernando folded his small protest sign and left as well.

He found a bar nearby, ordered a shot of tequila and began to shake.