When Ivan Lopez's mother died last year, he told friends the U.S. Army had given him just one day to attend her funeral in Puerto Rico.
That appeared to compound his grief over a personal double loss. The death in October of his mother, Carmen, a nurse, came soon after that of his grandfather, according to Edgardo Arlequin, the mayor of Lopez's hometown of Guayanilla.
"That was one of the reasons why he was very upset," Arlequin said. "They only gave him 24 hours. He was very, very close to his mother. His mother was a nice person, and everybody in the town knew her."
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