The final resting place for approximately 330,000 Americans including military personnel and their spouses, two presidents, astronauts, prominent explorers, literary figures, 3,800 freed slaves and eight Supreme Court Justices has been desecrated. As many as 6,600 of those interred at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) are tantamount to being MIA.
There are increasing revelations of abandoned grave markers and mismarked, unmarked, empty, misplaced and too-shallow graves on the 664 acre site at ANC, our nation’s most revered burial ground. There are also reports of mislabeled cemetery maps and at least four burial urns that were unearthed and dumped in a landfill–at least two of which were reportedly discovered years ago.
According to media reports, these and other insidious problems have been known to military officials for years. More disturbing is that ANC personnel, including the former budget officer, reported concerns to cemetery and Army superiors only to be ignored or reprimanded, while the situation continued to spiral out of control.
Recent, on-going government and military committee investigations have discovered that until this scandal became so public, the Army had not conducted audits of the cemetery in at least a decade. And more than 10 years ago and with minimal to nonexistent oversight, ANC officials awarded a reported $5 million to $20 million taxpayer dollars for contracts to digitize burial records and integrate a GPS-like satellite tracking system to accurately locate gravesites. This system is routinely used at cemeteries nationwide including those managed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Unfortunately, due to the widespread dysfunction at ANC, much of the costly investment cannot be accounted for, the system was not implemented and many burial records are still catalogued on 3 x 5 index cards. Such an antiquated system in an age of computerization and DNA testing should render identity mishaps obsolete.
Our military prides itself on loyalty and honor but this situation is the epitome of dishonor. And the excuses for the widespread dysfunction—staff reduction, budget cuts, outdated technology, an overwhelming burial schedule, mismanaged contracts and significant discord between the cemetery’s supervisor and his deputy (both of whom were forced to retire last month)—are offensive, condescending and unacceptable. Rationalizations aside, the tragic result is a total disregard for a dignified burial. Too many failed in their responsibilities to protect and respect the deceased interred at Arlington.
Eventually, the monetary cost of this disaster will be determined but the emotional devastation it has taken and will continue to exact on the loved ones of the deceased is incalculable and in many cases, probably irreparable. Cemetery burials and subsequent gravesite visitations—particularly on occasions that evoke memories—holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, provide a chance to absorb loss and process grief. Burial grounds are viewed as safe havens where the grief-stricken share and respect the emotions of other mourners. This is particularly true in a military cemetery where the commonality of unexpected, sudden loss of young lives, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, have brought together ‘a community of broken hearts,” as aptly named in a 2007 USA Today article.
Heart-wrenching stories from Arlington abound: a mother who spent winter afternoons wrapped in a sleeping bag, stretched across her son's grave; another traveled from out of state every other month to place iPod ear buds on her 20-year-old son’s grave, play Eminem and The Temptations for him and to sit at his grave reading out loud from the book Corduroy, a childhood favorite. Mourners picnic at graves, exchange stories, emails and phone numbers and establish kinship with otherwise strangers who understand and share their pain. While the current scandal will not alter the dynamics between the bereaved, it has exacerbated feelings of vulnerability, destabilized faith and served to undermine relationships with cemetery and military officials. How can the loved ones of the deceased accept death if any sense of closure is negated?
One of only two national cemeteries under the auspices of the Department of the Army, Arlington was established by Brigadier General Montgomery C. Meigs during the Civil War. Since then, it has been seeped in military ritual, so it is ironic that as a consequence of the current sacrilege,those time-honored traditions have been disrupted and tainted by the very people entrusted with their preservation and implementation. The updated Arlington National Cemetery Web site reference to the abysmal situation as” burial discrepancies” is a bureaucratic euphemism. Even now, it appears that the U.S. Army is more concerned about saving face rather than restoring what many consider America’s most hallowed ground, to a place “where valor proudly sleeps.”
-Gayle S. Fixler is a DC-area freelance writer. She is a member of Soldiers' Angels, the USO of Metropolitan Washington and a volunteer at the Washington DC VA Medical Center Nursing Home.
