Arlington National Cemetery’s Section 60 upsets families of war dead

Cleanup in Arlington National Cemetery’s Section 60 upsets families of war dead
Washington Post
By Greg Jaffe
Published: October 1 2013

Elizabeth Belle walked toward the grave of her son carrying a canvas bag full of miniature pumpkins, silk leaves and other decorations for his headstone. Then she noticed the changes.

Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 800 Iraq and Afghanistan war dead are buried, had been stripped bare. The photographs of young soldiers were gone. The balloons, too, and love letters, the sonograms and worry stones, the crosses and coins.

“They’ve taken everything,” Belle said.

Over the past weeks, a quiet transformation has taken place in Section 60, leaving family members of the dead feeling hurt, saddened and bewildered. Today, Section 60 resembles the quiet cemetery of an older generation’s war, not the raw, messy burial ground of one still being fought. Even within the hallowed ground at Arlington, Section 60 is special, a living memorial to an ongoing war.
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