Posted on 08/16/2009 8:18:33 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
The families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are being told to wait -- sometimes two months -- until their loved ones can be buried with full honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
The hallowed memorial site, which handles up to 27 burials a day, is so overwhelmed with the bodies of elderly veterans and young soldiers that families are told they'll have to go without full-honors ceremonies if they want a timely burial, according to a spokesman.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Ping
I don’t doubt they are overworked. Anyone who has spent much time in Arlington and watched the way they work cannot help but think they are pressed.
They do a great job, but can be viewed as a bottleneck, and it isn’t their fault. There are simply a lot of veterans, guys like my dad passing on, and I do believe it must be peaking.
I wonder if they will consider any short term measures to deal with this spike.
When I visited Arlington in June, 2007, there were four burials taking place simultaneously, or nearly so, close to the interment wall for my friend, a WW II veteran. I have no idea if others were planned for that day but it sure was busy in the two hours I was there.
A sad situation, to be sure. You have both the WWII/Korean generation dying off at the same time the current theatre had casualties. Is burial at ANC worth that long a wait? Personally, I’d rather be interred alongside family.
One of the comments expands a bit on what the article says:
“I believe that this story requires some measure of clarification:
In January 2009 the Secretary of the Army ordered that all Army Personnel, regardless of rank, should receive full military honors during their burial services at Arlington National Cemetery. However, no additional resourses were added to the Army unit which provides these services at Arlington.”
Out of curiosity, was this a late decision in the Bush administration, or an early decision in the Obama administration? Does anyone know?
For this to happen to our veterans and the families of veterans, this is a national disgrace.
I wonder if anything like this happened during the Bush years beside the Veterans Hospital debacle that is (I doubt it).
All veterans and all veteran organizations should be breathing down the neck of the administration over this until the problem is corrected. If they need to hire more or to commandeer soldiers from other states if necessary to get the job done then so be it but this should not be happening especially to our veterans and our veterans families, not in this country. Not now, not ever.
My father in law, who passed about 2 1/2 years ago, was a WW-II USAAF veteran. The Army sent one soldier, they might have sent two, except that his oldest grandson, a newly promoted SFC in the Army Reserve, claimed the honor. He had been a volunteer honor guard in Hawaii when he was on active duty so knew the drill. The American Legion and the VFW, FIL was member of both, each sent one guy, one of them had the electronic bugle/trumpet for "Taps".
My father fought in the Korean War. I’m tempted to show him this article but at the same time it may evoke unpleasant memories and thoughts. My brother took him to DC a few years back and I am told he (dad) broke down at the Korean War memorial. And he is among the least emotional people I have met.
Maybe the need to start calling up the old vets and drafting them into honor guard duty.
IMHO, those killed in the line of duty should be interred first. If there is any waiting, those retired and separated vets who have died natural deaths should be the ones waiting. And forget RHIP!
I think they should remedy this by giving preference to all Active Duty casualties, and I mean immediate preference.
When my dad was buried, If someone had told my family we would have to delay days, weeks or even months, I think we would readily agree.
This is a peak in activity. There must be a way to remedy this. I did not hear the rules had been changed by the Army in this fashion. I think that was a bad decision. I can’t believe whoever decided on that got signoff from people who understood the dynamics.
I too would be interested in how that decision was made and by whom.
Even before the backlog - vets were receiving a counterfeit service - with many having a recording of taps being played on a digital bugle...
If we can’t even bury our vets with the honors they deserve, then something is very wrong. Hello - how about adding some personnel... Oh, wait - that would take an act of congress...or so one would think.
They should have chose another spot for the cemetery instead of the Lee Mansion and grounds by that spiteful drunken Grant.
***
Get your facts straight ...
It was Quartermaster General Meigs who recommended that Arlington be used as a cemetery.
When I served with the USAF Honor Guard (1963-1967) We had 3 to 5 burials a day, 5 days a week in Arlington. That was just the USAF, the army, navy, marines and coast guard had their own. All of this before the V.N. war got really hot.
I mis spoke (it’s been a long time ago), the average was probably more like 1 -3 per day (USAF)
My grandparents, Dad, and an uncle are buried there ...
I am local and take my Mom all the time to the graves ...
We were there about a month ago and there were at least 6 funerals going simultaneously (3 with full honors - band, horses & catafalque, pall bearers, rifle squad, and trumpeter).
6 at a time is very doable - if you don’t go for full honors (pall bearers, rifle squad, and trumpeter only).
But, if you put the band and horses and catafalque in the mix - you are creating a logistical nightmare ...
Not enuf horses or bands ...
It was Quartermaster General Meigs who recommended that Arlington be used as a cemetery.
OK Grant was his boss and who masterminded the Rose Garden interment? Just so Lee would not come back to his property.
I would like to thank your father for his service to this country.
I really don’t think that this has to do with cutbacks but, it might be so...
There is a limited availability of burial spots and the military has a limited number of burials per day...
OK Grant was his boss and who masterminded the Rose Garden interment? Just so Lee would not come back to his property.
***
Meigs wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton suggesting that Robert E. Lee’s estate Arlington, which had been confiscated by the Federal government, be used for a military cemetery. “The grounds about the mansion are admirably adapted to such a use,” Meigs wrote on 15 June 1864. That same day, Stanton informed Meigs that he would allot 200 acres of the estate as burial ground.
In August 1864, twenty-six men were buried around Mrs. Lee’s rose garden.
Who masterminded the Rose Garden interments ???
Probably Meigs himself - he had a HUGE hatred of the South and Robert E. Lee, although he had served under and admired Lee prior to the war.
He considered Lee a traitor ...
0bama could spend a small part of the stimulus money to solve this problem.
Of course he won't do it, he is still too busy using that money to repay his campaign contributors in the United States and all that foreign money he received.
“My dad (WW2...German POW)and Mom are in the Columbarium. It took about 2 months to schedule each interment. My dad’s had the band, catafalque, etc. My mom’s was a dignified ceremony at my dad’s niche with a minister only. They do know how to be respectful of those who gave for their country.”
Similar for my dad. 3 war vet, WWII Africa/Germany POW, Korea, VN/Cambodia advisor. It took 2 months to get his ashes buried at Arlington, but they did the whole thing. Horse-drawn carriage with the polished wood box with his ashes, bugler, and salute. The minister happened to be the Chaplain for my cousin’s Maryland Guard unit. I was chosen to receive the flag, which I consider to be quite an honor. The absolute precision with which they carry out the rites and honors is amazing.
The whole ceremony took about half an hour from our leaving the reception center to our return there. The minister told us a bit about the men who serve as the honor guard and what it takes to be one of them. Also told us how many times a day they do what they do. At the time, it was 4 times a day, and that was before the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The little brochure about Arlington that they gave me was very interesting. All graves there are the same, officers and enlisted lie side-by-side. Each service branch “takes care of its own”.
Please clarify that. I must have missed it. What VA Hospital and when?
In August 1864, twenty-six men were buried around Mrs. Lee’s rose garden.
Who masterminded the Rose Garden interments ???
Probably Meigs himself - he had a HUGE hatred of the South and Robert E. Lee, although he had served under and admired Lee prior to the war.
He considered Lee a traitor ...”
that is one account I heard, But here are others and nothing happened that Grant did not want to happen! including Sherman's atrocities.
Thank you.
Maybe not at Arlington, where the limiting factor might be availability of grave sites and the desire to have each funeral be quasi private.
However the lack of honor guards for the much larger population being burried at other National Cemeteries (Like the "Punch Bowl in Hawaii or Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio) or at the various State Veterans Cemeteries (There's a fairly new one adjacent to Fort Hood, where my coworkers' husband remains lie), or even in other non veteran's cemetaries, is a direct result of the much diminshed numbers in the armed forces, all services and componenents.
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