Noteboom The Law Firm

Severe Mishandling of Gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery

August 3, 2010 - According to officials, thousands of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery have been improperly handled. Recently expelled cemetery personnel have gone on to say not only have these problems existed for at least 5 years, but they knew of these problems that entire time.  

There are 330,000 graves at Arlington housing veterans and others. The Army performed a test in June covering 3 of Arlington's 70 sections. Their study exposed 211 graves that had been mishandled. A recent Senate report extrapolated that figure to cover the entire cemetery and concluded anywhere from 4,900 to 6,600 of those graves may be:  

• Unmarked;
• Improperly marked; or
• Mislabeled on cemetery maps.

A recent hearing of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee heard testimony from the former Cemetery Superintendent, John Metzler, and the former Deputy Superintendent, Thurman Higginbotham. Both answered questions but Higginbotham also invoked the 5^th as to his role in contracts related to the cemetery. Metzler took responsibility, but blamed lack of employees, the budget, and cemetery jobs being contracted out.  

Up to $8 million in contracts have been awarded to digitize burial records. To date, most of those records are still on note cards, and there is almost nothing to show for those contracts. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) manages 131 cemeteries and has been successfully digitizing their records for around 15 years. The VA offered to help but was rebuked by Arlington officials, who wanted to build their own system.

Metzler attempted to explain away some of the issues inside Arlington. He also said during his tenure problems that arose were resolved. Nevertheless, those unmarked headstones are being replaced.