On Thursday they House of Representatives passed a bill that will require the Secretary of the Army
to provide Congress a full accounting of all 320,000 graves in Arlington National Cemetery. The Senate had already passed the legislation.
Following several scandals at Arlington, including unmarked or mislabeled graves in three of the seventy sections. It was also shown that at least four burial urns were dug up and dumped in a pile of dirt. More problems were uncovered including eight cremated remains that were placed in one grave.
The bill would also require a complete review of the contracts issued to digitize the paper records
of the cemetery. It would also conduct a study to determine if the authority and running of the cemetery should remain with the Army or turned over to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Senator Claire McKasill (MO) said that the bill "will provide the congressional oversight we need
to ensure we fix any errors as quickly as possible."
Now that Congress has acted swiftly, we can only hope that the followup investigation is done as
swiftly, and as correctly as possible.
Our heroes deserve the proper recognition and honor and respect of our country. They gave their
all in our defense, now let us defend them.
Jerald Terwilliger
National Chairman
American Cold War Veterans
"We Remember"
---------------- "And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades." -- Robert M. Gates, 1996
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