Posted on 06/11/2010 5:44:24 AM PDT by shortstop
You haven’t been to America until you’ve walked the hillsides of Arlington.
On the Virginia side of the Potomac, in the capital of our nation, where heroes lie row upon row.
It is one of the most stirring and sacred places in our country. The despoiled farm of a Confederate general, hallowed by those buried in its soil, it is a place of the heart.
Presidents are buried there, and generals and admirals, and the common soldiers and sailors of the last 150 years. The precision of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the green of the grass in a southern summer, the sacred white of the Lincoln Memorial across the river.
It is where we honor the national debt.
The debt we owe to the heroes and warriors who have bought our freedom with their blood and brawn.
This is where we have disgraced ourselves.
This is where we learned yesterday the specter of government mismanagement has poisonously raised itself above the entire cemetery. In this most sacred place, with its most important of responsibilities, the incompetence of the government worker has stained this consecrated ground.
There was a feud between top managers, there are people buried in the wrong place, some remains have been lost, and nobody really knows with any certainty for sure who is buried where.
The tomb of the unknowns is not where the Old Guard marches back and forth, it is at any one of scores of graves across the cemetery where sloppy record keeping and inattention to detail and duty have left the Arlington staff incapable of saying for sure who is buried where.
The stone says one thing, the records say something else, the reality may be altogether different from either. And the grave widows and orphans have wept over may not be the right one at all.
Because Arlington and its honored dead were entrusted to men too stupid to do the job.
It is, in simplest terms, an inventory job. It is an elementary logistical task. It is far less complex than the cataloging of books in a library. Inventory control at your neighborhood Wal-Mart is a dramatically more complex task. There are a certain number of graves and a certain number of bodies and the two must be coordinated and controlled.
But they weren’t.
Perfection was not expected, adequacy was not achieved, failure was accepted. A sloppiness came into the work as incompetent civilian employees of the Army worked their careers but didn’t work their jobs.
And yesterday the secretary of the Army read a report and offered an apology.
Which is not enough.
He should have tendered his resignation.
And he should have taken with him everyone who touched this. Every blathering idiot responsible for this should have been demoted and fired on the spot.
Instead, the 19-year superintendent of the cemetery is being allowed to retire with no penalty or punishment. His bickering Number 2 is on leave and unheard from.
And nobody is going to be punished.
At the end of it all, when the memories and resting places of heroes have been besmirched, nobody is being held responsible.
Which is how this came to happen in the first place. In the vapid vanilla of government employ, vigor and integrity are sucked out by a system that rewards sloth and anticipates weakness and failure.
People become bureaucratic zombies, not quite dead but not quite alive, shuffling through their days, awaiting retirement.
And they were put in charge of Arlington.
Which never should have happened.
Arlington should be run by a soldier with a combat patch on his shoulder. Arlington should be run by someone who has buddies buried beneath its sod. Arlington should be run by someone who has solidarity and fidelity with the dead and the cause of liberty for which they fought and died.
There are places in our society and in our government where things must be above reproach. Where we all feel welcome and confident, where things don’t go wrong and they get it right because their consciences demand it of them.
Arlington must be one of those places.
The Army must clean it out, the nation must hold it to a higher standard, it must be treated like what it is – the beating heart of our Republic. The place where America honors those who fought to make us free.
We will take a lot of things, but we won’t take this.
Arlington must be Arlington.
That’s all there is to it.
The Army must fix this problem. It must restore and ensure the integrity of that sacred piece of ground.
And it must happen now.
I think that “federal Employees” is the wrong choice of words.
Do these people have unions ? Are they so lost in paperwork that they can never get fired ? That’s the problem.
And where we see the future problem of healthcare, insurance, the auto industry, or anything else Obama takes over is not that the people working in the positions are “Stupid”, it’s that they exist in a land where a free market certainly does not.
They don’t acheive because they don’t have to. This is CERTAINLY not the spirit of the U.S. Armed Forces, but it certainly IS the spirit of the disenchanted civilian.
Why succeed when there is no promotion in line, or that promotion will come to you with no efforts ?
If there is a union behind this, it must be dissolved. Along with any other union.
Arlington should be run by a soldier with a combat patch on his shoulder. Arlington should be run by someone who has buddies buried beneath its sod. Arlington should be run by someone who has solidarity and fidelity with the dead and the cause of liberty for which they fought and died.Amen.
There are places in our society and in our government where things must be above reproach. Where we all feel welcome and confident, where things don’t go wrong and they get it right because their consciences demand it of them.
Government continues to prove the value of EEOC hiring.
All the words and comments I can come up with seem inadequate to express my disgust, horror and incredible grief about this.
Tremendously disgraceful and disrespectful to the entire USA.
G*D help us-please.
SZQ
19-year superintendent
How long has this been going on? Not one whistleblower over the years??? Outrageous. He should not be allowed to collect his pension. It’s so shameful. Makes my heart weep for these warriors & their families. He & all those who knew what was going on should go to jail.
I have been there a few times. I have to agree with how the author characterizes this most sacred place. When I walk through there, I feel like the place has a spirit. There is more there than just the breeze. It is very moving and humbling.
That said, I can’t fathom someone not respecting it enough to keep the records straight.
yup they want to run healtcare or maybe we should start calling it deathcare because there is no way to pay for it..as for the lazy creeps who did this..I think we should call for them to lose all benefits..they did not earn them.
If the double standard you're promoting here works, you just stand around while the 'rats or their MSM pimps brand ALL who protest them as "Tea baggers" along with the rest of the slugs.
If the exception proves the rule for the libs, it damn well applies here. In spades.
OTOH, maybe I'd better just shut up before I get myself banned.....I'll never rate burial at Arlington, but I served with a bunch who will and some already there. Just damn.
19 years ago? That’s 1991. You know what this means? BUSH’S FAULT!
I think this problem is more than just a couple years old, don’t you?
Arlington should be run by a soldier with a combat patch on his shoulder. Arlington should be run by someone who has buddies buried beneath its sod. Arlington should be run by someone who has solidarity and fidelity with the dead and the cause of liberty for which they fought and died.
_____________________________________
Yes
The rash has spread, widely.
And, the real reason is that American perspectives have been replaced with communist ones.
Before you dismiss that line, consider this.
When my mother died, I went to the synagogue to check on her burial plot. A member of the congregation who took care of this went with me. he said there was no such plot.
As he showed me the map of the graves, and politely but with certainty insisted that it must have been another cemetary, I just listened.
When he ran down, I pointed down to my feet, where only a few feet away was both the grave site and the headstone. He apologized for the error.
HEEEER’S the communism!
On the drive back to the synagogue, he admitted that communism had killed well over 100,000,000 people. However, he rather wistfully said, “It is such a good idea.”
Acceptance of, and reliance upon, social responsibility, rather than individual responsibility is the core problem afflicting America, Arlington, and the volunteer at Mom’s synagogue.
yeah, maybe you better shut up
because not every federal worker is an incompetent and some of them keep go to work every day to keep you and yours safer than you realize. Some even die in the process. Some even servd in uniform before becoming civilian federal workers. Some still do both
If you hate the democrat stereotyping of entire groups, then why emulate it. How petty.
Now, back to being aghast at the feds WHO WERE IN CHARGE OF ARLINGTON
Perhaps that is God’s plan? Besides, judging from a lot of comments, heaven sounds like a pretty socialist place, doesn’t it?
Exactly what I was thinking while reading this article.
What a disgraceful bunch of losers!
ping
Prior to this disgrace I wondered how the bodies are kept in the correct grave at the Los Angeles National Cemetery while they do work. There are wood partitions so that the public doesn’t see the work. The grave stones are taken up in some instances, and there is a backhoe present, so....If it can happen at Arlington, then it can happen anywhere.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.