Arlington National Cemetery "affect service personnel who are dying right now and in years to come."

"You can't harm Dad, and you can't harm Mom," he said, his voice cracking. "But the way this was handled is going to affect service personnel who are dying right now and in years to come. They deserve some honor and respect." said Mike McLaughlin after seeing a picture of his father's stone at Arlington in a creek. There is no way possible to describe how appalling it is to allow a place like Arlington National Cemetery to become what it has.

Arlington was a place to honor the men and women who gave their lives in service to this country, fighting her battles and doing what few others dare to do. It is not supposed to be political, or race based, or sex based. It is not supposed to be divided by religion. It was to be a place to honor and this has left many in this country wondering exactly how they thought allowing this to happen honored anyone. The fallen have been laid to rest, with dignified services in military tradition. They were honored with the playing of Taps and the firing of the rifles. But after the honor, they were nothing more than just some stones in the ground to some of the people in charge.

What this did to the living coupled with the scandal at Walter Reed a few years back, was to dishonor those serving today and the millions of veterans in this country. What promises have we kept to them? Will there ever be a time in this country when things like this are treated like criminal actions? Will there ever be a time when there is no one left even attempting to disregard the life laid down for this nation's sake? Will there ever be a time when we can look into the eyes of the wounded and tell them everything will be ok in their future and actually deliver on it?

Homeless veterans? Veterans and active military committing suicide instead of being helped to heal from combat? Redeploying troops over and over and over again no matter how much damage this does to them and their families? Deploying National Guards and Reservists over and over again no matter what this does to them especially when they have to depend on their income from jobs they cannot do while deployed? Is any of this delivering the message we value them, appreciate them or honor them?

When we as a nation should be doing everything humanly possible for them knowing their sacrifices don't end when they come home, to allow any of this to go on brings shame upon all of us.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." President Lincoln

Photo of veteran's tombstone in Arlington Cemetery creek startles son

By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2010

It was around lunchtime Thursday when Mike McLaughlin settled into a chair in his family room and opened the newspaper. There, on the front page, was a photograph of a burial marker lying in a stream at Arlington National Cemetery and an article that led to a sudden realization.


"This is my father's tombstone," he called out to his wife.

Then he became, as he said, "unglued." How could his father -- who dropped out of college to serve in World War I, rejoined the Navy the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor at the age of 44 and then served again during the Korean War -- be so dishonored?

Upset, he called the cemetery, which had been trying to figure out whom the headstone belonged to after The Washington Post alerted officials there Wednesday morning that several mud-caked markers were lining a stream at one of the country's most venerated burial grounds.

A few hours later, a top Arlington official called McLaughlin back to apologize for his father's tombstone being discarded in such a way and assure him that it will be disposed of properly.

In an interview from his home in the Shenandoah Valley, McLaughlin, a 74-year-old Arlington County native, said he was "appalled."

"You can't harm Dad, and you can't harm Mom," he said, his voice cracking. "But the way this was handled is going to affect service personnel who are dying right now and in years to come. They deserve some honor and respect."

read more here
Photo of veteran tombstone in Arlington Cemetery creek startles son

also on this subject,,,,

Chaos at Arlington Cemetery: Mismarked graves, dumping of urns
By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 11, 2010

Army investigators at Arlington National Cemetery have found more than 100 unmarked graves, scores of grave sites with headstones that are not recorded on cemetery maps, and at least four burial urns that had been unearthed and dumped in an area where excess grave dirt is kept.

The investigators found that these and other blunders were the result of a "dysfunctional" and chaotic management system at the cemetery, which was poisoned by bitterness among top supervisors and hobbled by antiquated record-keeping.

As a result, John McHugh, secretary of the Army, on Thursday announced a series of sweeping reforms at the nation's most hallowed cemetery; a scathing reprimand for the outgoing superintendent, John C. Metzler Jr.; and the appointment of a new director to oversee cemetery operations and continue the investigation.
click link for more

The more I think about this, the more hopeless I feel. Considering this is the last act a nation can do to honor the men and women who surrendered their lives for this country, there are no words to describe such a disgrace. They were asked to give all yet this is the only thing they asked of us when they or their families decided they should be laid to rest at Arlington. How could we let this happen? Who was watching the careless-disrespectful people in charge when they managed to do this? Who will be held accountable? Anyone?

Young men and women are wounded everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do we really want them to wonder what would have happened to their body if they died instead of surviving? Veterans watch in horror as this story exposes more and more of the disgrace and leaves them to wonder if their friends graves have been involved. Worse, they wonder what if it had been them.

We can find a lot of excuses for what we fail to do for their sake but for this, no excuse should ever be tolerated.