Staff Sgt. Juan Arreola has honored the dead the way Marines do — stone-faced with crisply folded flags and a sad bugle cry. He knows that has its place.
On the Day of the Dead holiday this weekend, Arreola, 33, honored the dead the way Mexicans do.
The Joliet man said he wanted to celebrate five fallen Marines when he ran in the 5K Race of the Dead on Saturday in Chicago’s primarily Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen, surrounded by jaunty mariachi music and playful skeleton figures meant to mock death.
Arreola once thought he’d never walk again, much less run competitively, after an improvised explosive device wounded him three years ago near Fallujah, Iraq. Still healing after about 25 surgeries, the Mexico native also sees the race as a celebration of his own life, prolonged.
“Instead of being sad or throwing back drinks at a bar for them, it’s a way to remember them, to keep them alive,” said Arreola, who still works for the Marines.
Arreola grew up in Mexico City, where he learned about the Day of the Dead, a holiday that blends Catholic beliefs with indigenous traditions. Like other families, the Arreolas would set up an altar with photos of beloved deceased relatives. As is tradition, they would set out the deceased’s favorite possessions, food and drink — from platefuls of tamales to mugs of champurrado, a hot, chocolaty drink.
But most of those relatives had died peacefully, perhaps in their sleep or in a loving embrace.
Not so in Iraq, where Arreola was instantly thrust into the deadly “Sunni triangle” near the height of the Iraqi insurgency.
On the afternoon of April 8, 2006, he was helping lead a patrol around a Marine base to provide cover for Iraqi employees who were being killed for working with the Americans.
Arreola noticed that the streets were suspiciously quiet — no vehicle traffic or kids playing. Just as his men were planning their next move, an IED decimated their Humvee.
Arreola was hurt the most.
In a military medical facility, a doctor braced him for the worst. Arreola’s legs were shattered, and the stethoscope was not detecting any blood circulation in his lower legs.
“I have to prepare you for this,” the doctor told him. “You might lose them.”
That was devastating news for a young man who adored the freedom he felt when running and playing soccer.
The doctors were able to save his legs, but the ensuing rehabilitation was brutal. At first, the pain meant Arreola could stand for only about 10 seconds at a time.
“When I was attacked, they took away the biggest thing that I enjoyed,” Arreola said, “which was my legs.”
Only months after a surgery in 2007, a businessman invited him to slog through a 5K race in the western suburbs. Arreola finished in about 38 minutes, half as fast as his typical time. Instead of a joyous milestone, the race reminded Arreola how much vibrancy had been taken from him.
Arreola also ran last year’s Race of the Dead, which winds through Pilsen. He returned this year with greater purpose.
He decided to run for five fellow Marines whose lives either had intersected with his or whose sacrifice he learned about later.
He had met the families of two of the Marines while serving in an official family-support role for Echo Company 4th Reconnaissance Battalion in Joliet. Arreola had helped organize the funeral of Cpl. Anthony Mihalo of Naperville and delivered a box of medals and patches to the family of Lance Cpl. Jesse De La Torre in Aurora.
The other three men served alongside Arreola in Iraq.
“We knew he was a real intelligent Marine,” Arreola said of Cpl. Peter Giannopoulos of Inverness. He recalled that Giannopoulos was handpicked to take courses on military tactics, which he passed on to his men.
While they lifted weights together, Cpl. Nathaniel Hammond of Oklahoma would try to sell Arreola on the joys of fishing and boating. “We’ll go fishing when we get back,” Arreola recalled Hammond telling him.
Sgt. Matthew Adams of the Quad Cities was a respected mentor for the men, a laid-back officer who wielded a strong hand when necessary. “We knew it was for our own good. It had its purpose, being tough with us,” Arreola said.
Though many of the estimated 2,000 race participants see the Pilsen event as merely part of the autumn race circuit, others like Arreola enter it with more heartfelt motivations, said Juan Rangel, president of the United Neighborhood Organization, the group that organizes the race as a fundraiser for education.
“It’s taking something that everyone has experienced — a death in the family, the death of a loved one — and using the race to mark that in a very personal way,” Rangel said.
Arreola’s other goal was to beat his time from last year. He succeeded, shaving off a few seconds and finishing in just under 24 minutes as he dodged runners dressed as masked wrestlers and vampires.
Instead of complaining about his arthritic ankles and knees, Arreola said he planned to embrace the holiday’s spirit of celebrating life.
“I’d rather feel that pain than not be able to run,” he said. “I plan to thank God for giving me another day with my legs.”
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oavila@tribune.com
