At Arlington: A Desecration

There are few things as sacred to any nation than the mem­o­ry of its mil­i­tary dead. For the US, one of the most sacred places is Arling­ton Ceme­tery, which almost exclu­sive­ly con­tains the memo­ri­als of our mil­i­tary and high-rank­ing polit­i­cal lead­ers.

This site has been des­e­crat­ed, that it, it has been shorn of its sacred nature by incom­pe­tence, mis-man­age­ment.

An esti­mat­ed “4,900 to 6,600 graves among the 330,000” have been left unmarked, have been incor­rect­ly marked, or mis-lableled on ceme­tery maps. The esti­mate comes from extrap­o­lat­ing through­out the ceme­tery the 211 errors found in June by the Army in 3 of the 7o sec­tions of the ceme­tery.

The Los Ange­les Times reports that “At a hear­ing of a Sen­ate Home­land Secu­ri­ty and Gov­ern­men­tal Affairs sub­com­mit­tee, Chair­woman Claire McCaskill (D‑Mo.) accused ceme­tery offi­cials of ‘cat­a­stroph­ic incom­pe­tence.’ ”

I find the lev­el of inep­ti­tude here to be amaz­ing. This is a nation’s trea­sure, the men and women called to serve, being treat­ed as no one should be. There’s even a report of cre­ma­tion ash­es being dis­posed of in a land­fill.

Words fail me.