Army secretary orders Arlington Cemetery probe

[CommunityEditor]

Secretary of the Army John McHugh announced Friday that he has ordered an investigation into allegations of lost accountability of some graves, poor record keeping and other issues at Arlington National Cemetery.

“As the final resting place of our nation’s heroes, any questions about the integrity or accountability of [the cemetery’s] operations should be examined in a matter befitting their service and sacrifice,” McHugh said after signing an order directing the Army Inspector General to begin investigating allegations regarding cemetery operations.

McHugh’s order comes amid revelations that cemetery workers inadvertently buried cremated remains at a gravesite that was already in use. The error was discovered in May 2008 and cemetery officials took immediate corrective measures, moving the cremated remains to another gravesite and remarking the original grave.

Since then, questions have been raised over whether cemetery officials used proper procedures to correct the mistake, including notifying the next of kin.

The investigation ordered by McHugh follows a separate internal investigation by the Military District of Washington over the discovery of an unmarked grave.

“Cemetery records, the MDW investigation and the non-invasive geophysical analysis of the gravesites strongly indicate that a husband and wife, who died years apart and should have been buried in the same gravesite, were instead buried in adjacent graves,” MDW spokesman Col. Dan Baggio said in a statement.

New grave markers have been ordered for the site, and the couple’s family members have decided against exhuming the remains and conducting DNA tests.

The unmarked grave was first discovered in 2003 but cemetery officials took no action until this year. McHugh is now directing the IG to examine accountability and policy issues in that case. The IG also is in the middle of a management review of the cemetery, started under McHugh’s predecessor Pete Geren, to make overall recommendations on how to better operate the facility.

“A thorough investigation and transparency in its results can help correct whatever may be wrong and ensure America’s confidence in the operation of its most hallowed ground,” McHugh said in a statement. “We will take appropriate action as the facts dictate.”


Article: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/1...ngton_111309w/

This has been an astounding and heartbreaking story to follow. Salon.com has been producing articles, interviews and paper-trails on this for months, since they broke the story over the summer. Amazingly, it didn't turn any heads.

I sincerely recommend reading this article (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...ton_contracts/) and looking at some of their archives if you are able to.

Our nation's heroes deserve the respect that we expect they were being given. Serious, immediate and drastic effort needs to be given to correcting all the wrongs that seem to have happened.

We owe each person there SO much more than that.

Also note that almost every other cemetery in the nation has come fully up to speed with electronic records; Arlington falls years behind sites of comparable size and respect.

This is a shame and demands national outcry. Check the articles.

[VFFSSGT]

Arlington needs more than a "probe." It needs some employees who will work. When I was in DC a couple of months ago, I visited Arlington for the first time ever. What a shock! It is not all that pretty and up kept as TV portrays it. There were many head stones that were falling over or about to because of ground erosion. There were also head stones being destroyed by trees growing into them.

Absolutely Pathetic!