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Arlington National Cemetery
Tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery. 
The Memorial Drive leads from the Lincoln Memorial, across the Potomac River, to the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, and the portico of Arlington House is visible at top. Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a descendant of Martha Washington. The cemetery is situated directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., near The Pentagon, and is served by the Arlington Cemetery station on the Blue Line of the Washington Metro system. More than 290,000 people are buried in an area of . Veterans and military casualties from every one of the nation's wars are interred in the cemetery, from the American Revolution through the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pre-Civil War dead were reinterred after 1900. Arlington shares with Mill Springs National Cemetery, the only other open cemetery in the system, the distinction of being the oldest military burial ground in the United States. Arlington National Cemetery and United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery are administered by the Department of the Army. The other National Cemeteries are administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs or by the National Park Service. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) and its grounds are administered by the National Park Service as a memorial to Lee.
HistoryTraditionally, American military cemeteries developed from the duty of commanders on the frontier and in battle to care for their casualties. When Civil War casualties overflowed hospitals and burial grounds near Washington, D.C., Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs proposed in 1864 that of the Robert E. Lee family property at Arlington be taken for a cemetery. "The grounds about the mansion", Meigs wrote, "are admirably adapted to such a use." Burials had in fact begun at Arlington before the ink was even blotted on Meigs's proposal. By war's end, 16,000 graves filled the spaces close to the house. Custis Lee, heir to the property, sued the government claiming ownership of the land. After the Supreme Court ruled in Lee's favor, Congress paid him $150,000 for title to the land. 
Plan and roadways of Arlington National Cemetery. Before the Civil War, Robert E. Lee had been a West Point graduate and a United States Army officer. When Fort Sumter was forced to surrender, President Abraham Lincoln offered Lee the command of the Federal army. Lee demurred, because he wanted to see how Virginia would decide. When Virginia announced its secession, Lee resigned his commission and took command of the armed forces of the state of Virginia, and later became commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.[1] He quickly established himself as an able commander, defeating a series of Union generals, until his final defeat and surrender at Appomattox Court House. Because of this decision and subsequent performance, Lee was regarded as disloyal by most Union officers. The decision was made to appropriate his farm as a graveyard for mostly Union dead.[2] In Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day has been celebrated. On May 30, 1968, the first national ceremony for Memorial day took place in Arlington Nation Cemetery by the President Lyndon B. Johnson. Burial criteria
Hundreds of volunteers gathered at Arlington to place more than five thousand donated Christmas wreaths on head stones in the cemetery. The 14th annual wreath laying event is a result of Worcester Wreath Company owner Morrill Worcester's boyhood dream of doing something to honor those laid to rest in the National Cemetery. HistoricalTodayPart 553 of Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations establishes regulations for Arlington National Cemetery, including eligibility for interment (ground burial) and inurnment (columbarium). 32 C.F.R. 553 Eligibility for burial differs from eligibility for inurnment in the columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery. Due to limited space, ground burial eligibility criteria are much more restrictive than other National Cemeteries, as well as more restrictive than inurnment in the columbarium. The persons specified below are eligible for ground burial in Arlington National Cemetery, unless otherwise prohibited.[3] The last period of active duty of former members of the Armed Forces must have ended honorably. Interment may be casketed or cremated remains.
Prohibitions Against Burial or InurnmentCongress has from time to time created prohibited categories of persons that, even if otherwise eligible for burial, lose that eligibility. One such prohibition is against certain persons that are convicted of committing certain state or federal capital crimes, as defined in statute. See 38 U.S. Code § 2411. Capital crime is a specifically defined term in the statute, and for state offenses can include offenses that are eligible for a life sentence (with or without parole). The reasoning for this provision originally was to prevent Timothy McVeigh from being eligible at Arlington National Cemetery, but it has since been amended to prevent others. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165335,00.html Also prohibited under the same statute are those determined, with clear and convincing evidence, to have avoided such conviction by death or fleeing. See 38 U.S. Code § 2411. This provision was meant to deal with situations where eligible persons commit murder and then commit suicide or flee and avoid a conviction for that crime, which would mean they would not lose their eligibility like those that made it to trial and conviction. Tomb of the Unknowns
The Tomb of the Unknowns. The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery is also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It stands on top of a hill overlooking Washington, D.C. One of the more popular sites at the Cemetery, the tomb is made from Yule marble quarried in Colorado. It consists of seven pieces, with a total weight of 79 short tons (72 metric tons). The tomb was completed and opened to the public April 9, 1932, at a cost of $48,000. It was initially named the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier." Other unknown servicemen were later entombed there, and it became known as the "Tomb of the Unknowns", though it has never been officially named. The soldiers entombed there are:
The Tomb of the Unknowns is perpetually guarded by the U.S. Army. The 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment ("The Old Guard") began guarding the Tomb April 6, 1948. Arlington Memorial Amphitheater
Exterior facade of the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater is modeled on Roman amphitheatres. It is built of Vermont Imperial Danby marble in the Ionic order. 
Arlington National Cemetery Amphitheater Before the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater was completed in 1921, important ceremonies were held at what is now known as the "Old Amphitheater." This structure sits where Robert E. Lee once had his gardens. The amphitheater was built in 1868 under the direction of General John A. Logan. Gen. James Garfield was the featured speaker at the Decoration Day dedication ceremony, May 30, 1868. The amphitheater has an encircling colonnade with a latticed roof that once supported a web of vines. The amphitheater has a marble dais, known as "the rostrum", which is inscribed with the U.S. national motto found on the Great Seal of the United States, E pluribus unum ("Out of many, one"). The amphitheater seats 1,500 people and has hosted speakers such as William Jennings Bryan. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/visitor_information/old_amphitheater.html Other notable sitesOther frequently visited sites in the cemetery are the USMC War Memorial (commonly known as the "Iwo Jima Memorial") and the Netherlands Carillon (these sites are actually located adjacent to the cemetery), and the grave of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy is buried with his wife and two of their children. He was placed here March 14, 1967. His grave is marked with an eternal flame. His brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is also buried nearby. The latter's grave is marked by a simple cross. 
Eternal flame and marker at the grave of John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States. The federal government dedicated a model community for freed slaves, Freedman's Village, near the current Memorial Amphitheater, December 4, 1863. More than 1,100 freed slaves were given land by the government, where they farmed and lived during and after the Civil War. They were turned out in 1890 when the estate was repurchased by the government and dedicated as a military installation. In Section 27, there are buried more than 3,800 former slaves, called "Contrabands" during the Civil War. Their headstones are designated with the word "Civilian" or "Citizen". 
Remembering the Maine: The memorial to the USS Maine. Near the Tomb of the Unknowns stands a memorial to the 266 men who lost their lives aboard the USS Maine. The memorial is built around a mast salvaged from the Maine's wreckage.[5] (The Maine's other mast is erected at the United States Naval Academy, making the Maine the "longest ship in the Navy" in Naval Academy tradition.) The Maine Memorial has served as the temporary resting place for foreign heads of state allied with the United States who died in exile in the United States during the Second World War, pending the return of their remains to their homeland. These were Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippines and Ignacy Jan Paderewski of Poland. 
Cenotaph memorial honoring the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger. On a knoll just south of Arlington House, with views of the Washington Monument and Capitol, is a memorial to Pierre-Charles L'Enfant, the architect who laid out the city of Washington. His remains lie below a marble memorial incised with his plan for the city. L'Enfant envisioned a grand neoclassical capital city for the young republic that would rival the capitals of European monarchies. There are memorials to those killed in two acts of terrorist violence:
The noted composer, arranger, trombonist and Big Band leader Maj. Alton Glenn Miller of the U.S. Army Air Forces has been missing in action since December 15, 1944. Miller was eligible for a memorial headstone in Arlington National Cemetery as a service member who died on active duty whose remains were not recoverable. At his daughter's request, a stone was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery in April 1992. There are only two mausoleums located within the confines of the Cemetery. One is for the family of General Nelson Appleton Miles located in Section 3 and the other one belongs to the family of General Thomas Crook Sullivan and it is located in Section 1. There is a Canadian Cross of Sacrifice with the names of all the citizens of the USA who lost their lives fighting in the Canadian forces during the Korean War and the two World Wars. The Women in Military Service for America Memorial can be found at the Ceremonial Entrance to Arlington National Cemetery. On May 15, 1997, after more than two decades of denying the existence of the "Secret War" in Laos during the Vietnam War conflict, the U.S. government officially acknowledged this once covert war, honoring its U.S. and Laotian Hmong veterans with the opening of the Laos Memorial on the Arlington National Cemetery grounds, along a path between the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame and the Tomb of the Unknowns.
Burial procedures
Arlington House flag flying at half-mast. The flag is lowered during interments. Funerals, including interments and inurnments, average well over 20 a day. The Cemetery conducts approximately 5,400 burials each year. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/funeral_information/guide.pih.html With more than 290,000 people interred there, Arlington National Cemetery has the second-largest number of people buried of any national cemetery in the United States. The largest of the 130 national cemeteries is the Calverton National Cemetery, on Long Island, near Riverhead, New York, which conducts more than 7,000 burials each year. In addition to in-ground burial, Arlington National Cemetery also has one of the larger columbariums for cremated remains in the country. Four courts are currently in use, each with 5,000 niches. When construction is complete, there will be nine courts with a total of 50,000 niches; capacity for 100,000 remains. Any honorably discharged veteran is eligible for inurnment in the columbarium, if they served on active duty at some point in their career (other than for training). See 32 C.F.R. 553.15a Media access controversyUntil 2005, the cemetery's administration had given free access, with the surviving families permission, to the media to cover funerals at the cemetery. According to the Washington Post, over the past several years the cemetery has gradually imposed increasing restrictions on media coverage of funerals.[8] After protesting the new restrictions on media representatives, Gina Gray, the cemetery's new public affairs director, was demoted and then fired on June 27, 2008 after only three months in the job. Days after Gray began working for the cemetery and soon after she had spoken to the media about the new restrictions, her supervisor, Phyllis White, began requiring Gray to notify White whenever she "left the building." On June 9, White changed Gray's title from Public Affairs Director to "Public Affairs Officer." A few days later, when Gray took sick leave, White disconnected Gray's email BlackBerry. In the termination memo, White stated that Gray had, "been disrespectful to me as your supervisor and failed to act in an inappropriate manner."[9] Thurman Higginbotham, deputy director of the cemetery stated that Gray's release from employment, "had nothing -- absolutely nothing to do with -- with media issues."[10] The US Army's Secretary, Pete Geren, has asked his staff to look into Gray's dismissal. Said Gray in response, "I am definitely encouraged by any investigation into the mismanagement at Arlington Cemetery."[11] The U.S. Army stated that they had not received any complaints about the newer, more restrictive policies concerning media coverage of funerals. But CNN reported that some families have complained about not being able to decide for themselves on the level of media access allowed.[12] Notable burials
Respectful silence is requested at Arlington. Military burials
As of May 2006, there were 367 Medal of Honor recipients buried in Arlington National Cemetery,[13] nine of whom are Canadians. Wartime service members with other distinguished careers
Notable civilians
Whether or not they were wartime service members, U.S. presidents are eligible to be buried at Arlington, since they oversaw the armed forces as commanders-in-chief. Three state funerals have been held at Arlington: those of Presidents William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy, and that of General John J. Pershing. See also
ReferencesExternal links
da:Arlington National Cemetery de:Nationalfriedhof Arlington es:Cementerio Nacional de Arlington eo:Arlingtona nacia tombejo fr:Cimetière national d'Arlington it:Cimitero nazionale di Arlington he:??? ?????? ?????? ????????? lb:Arlington National Cemetery nl:Arlington National Cemetery ja:?????????? no:Æresgravlunden i Arlington pl:Narodowy Cmentarz w Arlington pt:Cemitério Nacional de Arlington ru:????????????? ???????????? ???????? sl:Nacionalno pokopali??e Arlington fi:Arlingtonin sotilashautausmaa sv:Arlingtonkyrkogården vi:Ngh?a trang qu?c gia Arlington tr:Arlington Ulusal Mezarl??? uk:?????????????? ???????????? ??????? zh:??????? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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