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Capt. John Gaffaney Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, was a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif., for more than 20 years and had arrived at Fort Hood the day before the shooting to prepare for a deployment to Iraq. Born in Williston, N.D., Gaffney had served in the Navy and later the California National Guard as a younger man, his family said.

The fight over Robert E. Lee's beloved home—seized by the U.S. government during the Civil War—went on for decades One afternoon in May 1861, a young Union Army officer went rushing into the mansion that commanded the hills across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. "You must pack up all you value immediately and send it off in the morning," Lt. Orton Williams told Mary Custis Lee, wife of Robert E. Lee, who was away mobilizing Virginia's military forces as the country hurtled toward the bloodiest war in its history. Mary Lee dreaded the thought of abandoning Arlington, the 1,100-acre...

A burial at Arlington National Cemetery Friday had all the trimmings of a proper military funeral except one thing, the soldier’s remains. It's theft in front of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. has left the family distraught. The urn containing the remains of bronze star and two purple hearts winner Army Colonel Norbert Otto Schmidt was taken from his family’s SUV just before the funeral. The thieves also stole a computer and other items from the vehicle. The ceremony had to be moved to a different part of the cemetery but the gravestone will be moved to its proper...

“People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” George Orwell Veteran’s Day is a time to remember “All gave some….Some gave all.”Before reaching the new gravestones in Arlington National Cemetery’s ‘Section 60’ it’s easy to recognize why a simple, quilted, patch of green grass and white stones buried alongside the quiet banks of the Potomac River troubles the heart.Names etched into fresh marble tell the sad tale of early death …Travis L. Youngblood…. Justin Ray Davis….Andy D. Anderson….Thomas J. Barbieri Jr….. Kenneth E. Zeigler II….James R. McIlvaine …....

<p>This is an early notice that we have permits for ALL of the Memorial Circle in front of Arlington Cemetery. We’ve already had our preliminary meeting with the National Park Service and everything is a GO.</p> <p>We will be there on March 20,2010 when ANSWER, World Can’t Wait and other anti-war, anti-troop, anti-American groups gather on the Mall and march to the Pentagon.</p>

Prince William County decided not to join Arlington County in its lawsuit against high-occupancy toll lanes on Interstates 95 and 395, citing what it characterizes as race-baiting and class warfare in the suit. The county considered joining the suit because it shared concerns about the HOT lanes’ proceeding without a proper environmental study and their effect on traffic, but Board Chairman Corey Stewart, R-At large, said the board unanimously agreed Arlington’s suit raised too many concerns. “The board had a closer look at the suit and there are allegations in there about Pierce Homer, the secretary of transportation, and about...

Here is a CNN report showing the location in Arlington National Cemetery where Sen. Ted Kennedy is being buried today. He will be buried near the graves of his two brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy - both of whom were assassinated. The hillside location looking out over he cemetery and toward the Lincoln Memorial is where President John Kennedy stood just shortly before his assassination and said, "I could stay here forever." . . . . . (Watch Video)

A photo gallery in remembrance

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.

July 17, 2009 | A few days after Memorial Day, I walked across the sprawling, plush lawn of Arlington National Cemetery. I headed toward Section 60, a remote area of the famous burial ground, where 600 service members from Iraq and Afghanistan are laid to rest. Gina Gray, former public affairs officer at the cemetery, had testified that mismanagement at Arlington had resulted in callous treatment of personal mementos and artifacts left on grave sites in Section 60. The sun was out after several days of rain. As I approached the gravestones, I saw that Gray was right. Left out...

Salon.com has a disheartening story about the troubles at the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia, those sacred grounds were thousands upon thousands of our nation’s heroes and notables have been buried. Infuriatingly, it seems that cemetery records are a mess, some of them not corresponding to headstones, many garbled or lost. This is the nation’s most revered cemetery yet some soldier’s names are lost to the permanent record, some burials are unknown because of failed record keeping, it is even thought that some headstones are on the wrong graves. In 2004 and 2005, Arlington conducted a pilot project to...

Everyone wants to write their congressman (person) when they are displeased with the way things are going. When that does not work (and it won't) many choose to demonstrate at their local city offices or state capital. Others take the time to actually travel to the seat of the real problem - Washington DC. When that does not work (and it never does) what is left to do. Just do it all over again and again and again........ Let me tell you a tale of Bill Clinton, an ambassador buddy of his (that was one of his anti-Vietnam war buddies)...

"Only under the administration of a former 'community organizer,' a product of the corrupt Chicago political machine, who never served a day of his life in uniform, could a 20-year retired Marine Corps Officer be prohibited from visiting the Arlington National Cemetery resting place of his father, a 30-year retired Marine Corps Officer with distinguished combat service, on the most hallowed of days for our fallen and deceased military servicemen and women -- Memorial Day."

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama avoided a racial controversy on his first Memorial Day in office by sending wreaths to separate memorials for Confederate soldiers and for blacks who fought against them during the Civil War. Last week, a group of about 60 professors petitioned the White House, asking the first black U.S. president to break tradition and not memorialize military members from the Confederacy, the group of Southern states that supported slavery. "The Arlington Confederate Monument is a denial of the wrong committed against African-Americans by slave owners, Confederates and neo-Confederates, through the monument's denial of slavery as...

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2009 – More than 3,000 servicemembers officially kicked off the Memorial Day commemoration last evening as they placed more than 250,000 miniature flags at every grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Airman Jacob Proffer, a member of the Air Force Honor Guard, pauses to salute a grave after placing a miniature flag at its base during the “Flags In” tribute at Arlington National Cemetery, May 21, 2009. “When I do this, it makes me take a lot more pride every time I put on my uniform, seeing the measure of sacrifice so many have made,” he said....

 Photo credit: Marooned in Marin It's been six years since President Bush launched an attack on - not Iraq, not Bagdad, not a country and its people, but - Saddam Hussein -- Saddam Hussein and; those who would attack the U.S. And on this anniversary day, Brian Becker, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.) or cANSWER ("CANCER") as we like to call it, organized his scruffy, useless, parasitic contingent to march on Washington once again. The DC Chapter has been there each time to counter protest. In the early years, cANSWER was able round up great...

PORTLAND — A former Washington state Transportation Department engineer yesterday has found himself, his imam and his mosque swept into an unfolding investigation by Portland's joint terrorism force led by the FBI. Farid Adlouni, a civil engineer and U.S. citizen who once worked out of the Vancouver office, was profiled in The Oregonian newspaper yesterday as a man with business ties to a top Osama bin Laden aide and who has attracted FBI scrutiny. Adlouni, 38, yesterday said he had "done nothing wrong." The imam, Mohammad Abdirahman Kariye, also a U.S. citizen, was recently charged with two felony counts of...

Here is video from this morning where President-elect Barack Obama and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. . . . . (watch video)

Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden are getting trigger happy for the spot light. They are seen this morning in a surprise ceremony at Arlington National Cemetary, laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. Not only is that the duty of the President on Memorial Day, it is an encroachment of the solemn respect earned by what the tomb represents. I resent it being used for a photo-op by two Senators who have voted against funding military.

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar, at the request of a Hoosier who has served in The Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, spurred the effort for all service members, regardless of rank, to receive full honor funerals. Beginning in early 2009, enlisted service members will receive the same funeral honors as officers at Arlington National Cemetery. In addition to the previous rule that offered a firing party, bugler and chaplain, they also will have a caisson, band, colors team and escort platoon. “I deeply appreciate Sergeant Durbin’s impressive service to our country and his tireless advocacy on behalf of his fellow...

The subject of the President’s weekly radio address was fighting substance abuse in America. TRANSCRIPT U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Iraq and spoke to the troops at Joint Base Balad, Iraq.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2008 – Volunteers will gather at noon tomorrow at Arlington National Cemetery to place holiday wreaths on veterans’ gravesites as part of the nationwide “Wreaths Across America” project. Volunteers fan out over Arlington National Cemetery, Va., to place 5,000 wreaths on the graves of veterans as part of the 2006 “Wreaths Across America” project. The wreaths, donated by a Maine businessman, attracted thousands of people to pay their respects to veterans. DoD photo by Jim Garamone  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Worcester Wreath Company from Harrington, Maine, has donated about 90,000 wreaths for the...

On this day in 1921, Sgt. Edward F. Younger, a U.S. Army veteran, decorated war hero, and recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal, entered a hall in Chalons-sur-Marne, France carrying a spray of white roses. Before him were four identical caskets, each draped with an American flag and each cradling the body of a World War I American soldier. Younger circled the caskets three times and then placed the white roses on the third casket from the left. The selected casket was brought aboard the USS Olympia, which carried it across the ocean to the United States, where the soldier...

WMAL(Washington)has been reporting all day that Arlington County has 146,000 registered voters not including those that registered today. With a population "just over 200,000".

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is 2nd Lt. Howard C. Enoch Jr., US Army Air Forces, of Marion, KY. He will be buried on September 22 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Representatives from the Army met with Enoch's next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate internment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army. On March 19,...

9/11 steel poured for USS SomersetBy KIRK SWAUGER Published: August 06, 2008 11:35 pm SOMERSET — The old draglines that towered above the reclaimed strip mine where Flight 93 crashed near Shanks-ville almost seven years ago are gone. But their symbolic significance to the day average Americans fought back against terror will not be lost. Twenty-two tons of steel from one of the large cranes was melted and poured Wednesday for the stemhold of the USS Somerset, a Navy vessel being constructed in honor of Flight 93’s passengers and crew. “We’re going to be cutting the water for that ship...

A flap over an allegedly pervy state senator - and scathing columns by the Herald’s own Howie Carr - pushed some Arlington residents to bite back by embracing their inner moonbat. “I happily take the term moonbat and fly free,” said Menotomy Moonbats spokeswoman Deborah Butler, who was derided in one of Carr’s columns. “We’re looking for a way to put positive energy into the word.” The group ordered 60 T-shirts last week designed with a bat against a glow-in-the-dark moon backdrop. They’ll be on sale at the Arlington Farmer’s Market for $15 each as soon as Aug. 20. The...

ARLINGTON -- Two gunmen who forced their way into a southeast Arlington home Tuesday afternoon “blasted through the back door” with shotguns, tied up a couple and their adult son and took the woman’s jewelry, a 911 audio recording says.The female victim, who has asked Tuesday that her name not be used because the suspects are still at large, told the 911 dispatcher that the home invasion about 1 p.m. Tuesday was “unreal.”She said she was sitting reading in her home in the 500 block of Lemon Drive, her son was on the computer and her husband was getting ready...

ARLINGTON WEBSITE We must ask ourselves if we are living our lives to demonstrate that we deserve their sacrifice. Are we going to preserve that which they gave everything to defend?

Check out this amazing video of an Air Force funeral detail at Arlington National Cemetery. As a furious thunderstorm rolls in with blinding rain and enough wind to rip their hats off their heads, they don't move a muscle, and continue their watch over the departed. Simply amazing, and very moving.

ARLINGTON, VA., May 26, 2008 – A group of past and present military women gathered at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery here today to commemorate fallen comrades and celebrate women’s contributions to the nation’s defense. Retired Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Anna Der-Vartanian, left, shakes hands with retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeanne Holm during a Memorial Day ceremony held at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, Va., May 26, 2008. Defense Dept. photo by Gerry J. Gilmore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. WIMSA’s annual...

ALINGTON, Va., May 26, 2008 – Under sunny skies and before a multitude gathered at the Tomb of the Unknowns on Arlington National Cemetery here, President Bush today honored the sacrifices of American men and women in uniform who gave their lives in the service of their country. President Bush delivers a Memorial Day address in the Tomb of the Unknowns amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., May 26, 2008. Seated behind the commander in chief are Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, left, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Army Maj. Gen. Richard J....

Army Pfc. William Timothy Dix died in Iraq in April and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on a brilliant May afternoon. He was laid to rest in Section 60, where the sod is fresh and the nearby tombstones bear names such as Justin, Brandon and Ashly: soldiers young enough to be named in the 1980s but old enough to die for their country. Pfc. Dix was buried with standard military honors: a lone bugler at a 45-degree angle from the casket, the Old Guard with a rifle salute, a somber chaplain and the flag presentation to his family. It...

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2008 – More than 3,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines officially kicked off the Memorial Day commemoration last evening as they placed 265,000 miniature flags at every grave at Arlington National Cemetery. U.S. Army Master Sgt. Sandra Quaschnick, right, and U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Jennifer Bailey, left, render salutes during the "Flags In" ceremony to honor fallen heroes at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., May 22, 2008. Quaschnick and Bailey are assigned to the Fife and Drum Corps of the 3rd U.S. Infantry, "The Old Guard." Defense Dept. photo by Sebastian J. Sciotti Jr.  (Click photo for...

Fresh Air from WHYY, May 22, 2008 · After American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, it took firefighters three days to extinguish the flames. Firefighter Patrick Creed and journalist Rick Newman join Fresh Air to talk about the Pentagon blaze and the book they wrote about it, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. Firefight tells the stories of the people inside the Pentagon when the plane hit, the rescue efforts that followed the attack and the three-day battle to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters faced unique circumstances, Creed and Newman write,...

I had the privilege of attending a burial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery the other day. The veteran being interred wasn’t special, except to family and friends. And he was special to his countrymen simply because he was an American and a veteran of World War II -- one of the thousands who pass away each day. He will remain nameless; one of the unknown millions of American patriots who served their country and the world in the cause of human dignity and freedom, and now -- on this appropriately gray, rainy and blustery day in early May -- he...

Frank Buckles apparently doesn't intend to take the offer any time soon. At 107, he still does 50 sit ups a day and lifts weights three times a week. (MILWAUKIE, Ore.) - Ken Buckles, Executive Director of Oregon's Remembering America's Heroes, has won a long-fought battle – a battle centered around World War One. For twelve years, Buckles has been recognizing and honoring American Vets through his program at Milwaukie High School where he is also a teacher. But this time it was personal. Ken Buckles is related to Frank Buckles, America's last living WWI Veteran.

ARLINGTON, Va., April 4, 2008 – The remains of Colorado Air National Guard Maj. Perry H. Jefferson, who vanished during an observation flight 39 years ago over the jungles of South Vietnam, were at last laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. Members of the U.S. Air Force Honor Guard carry the remains of Colorado Air National Guard Maj. Perry Jefferson into the Old Chapel on Fort Myer, Va., April 3, 2008, 39 years after Jefferson went missing in action in Vietnam. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Mike R. Smith, USAF  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Three days...

Doors uncovered Two days after the attack, racial graffiti was spray-painted on the garage doors of the house the couple has been building since 2005, when a fire destroyed their previous home. In January, KSKY/660 AM radio host Mike Gallagher helped raise $4,000 to replace the doors. Gamble picked up the new doors last week, according to Gallagher. The vandalized doors have not been replaced, but a blue tarp covers the racial slurs. Haynes announced Friday that the doors were being uncovered so the "world would see that racism exists in Arlington." "Racism in Arlington has been exposed," he said....

Arlington, Ore. (AP) -- The mayor of an Oregon town who once stripped to her underwear and posed on a fire truck has been stripped of her office. Voters in this town of about 500 voted narrowly Monday to recall Carmen Kontur-Gronquist. The tally was 142-139. City officials said the recall is effective Tuesday. Kontur-Gronquist said the pictures of her in black bra and panties were taken for use in a contest about fitness, but a relative posted them on MySpace in hopes it would improve the social life of the single mother.

Keeping Arlington a welcoming place for immigrants is one of the top priorities of new County Board Chairman Walter Tejada (D), the first chairman of a local government in Virginia to be Latino. Tejada, himself an immigrant who moved to the U.S. from El Salvador as a teenager, laid out his agenda for 2008 earlier this week and the issue of racial and ethnic inclusion took center stage. He highlighted a pro-immigrant resolution the Board passed in 2007 and said that, as chairman, he will continue to pursue this policy of cultivating the county’s diversity. "While others were making scapegoats...

Airmen, civilians lay wreaths at Arlington http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123013643 by Senior Airman J.G. Buzanowski Air Force Print News 12/19/2005 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Despite the cold, wind and snow, about 75 people gathered at Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 15 to lay more than 5,000 wreaths on gravesites, including four at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Since 1992, members of the armed forces, civil air patrol, veterans of foreign wars and several civilians have gathered to take part in the project, a brainchild of Maine resident Morrill Worcester. Mr. Worcester owns and operates a holiday decoration company. Thirteen years ago he...

Detention transformed doctor into man of peace Saudi carries no bitterness home as he ends San Antonio stay 05/25/2002 By DAVID McLEMORE / The Dallas Morning News SAN ANTONIO - Dr. Al-Badr Al-Hazmi sits easily on the carpeted floor of the mosque. He speaks with a soft intensity, the words spilling out as he describes the day his life was turned upside down. Stony-faced FBI agents whisked him from his San Antonio home a day after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He was flown to New York and secreted in a detention cell for nearly two weeks. Like hundreds...

On a cold December day, a crowd of more than 1,000 volunteers—from civilians and soldiers to toddlers and senior citizens—waits quietly, solemnly at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. In the distance they hear the low rumble of a tractor-trailer filled with 5,000 wreaths as it bursts through the morning’s dense fog making its way toward them. As the trailer comes to a stop, it marks the completion of a 750-mile journey from Harrington, Maine (pop. 882), to Arlington, where volunteers prepare to honor our nation’s departed heroes by adorning their graves with wreaths. The creator of the annual holiday...

I can offer you the Nashville Dominican Postulants ... Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post has a patronizing yet grudgingly positive article on the Nashville Dominicans, who are opening a high school in the Arlington Diocese. The piece is framed, somewhat facetiously, along the lines of a business-section feature about a successful marketing ploy, focusing on the externals of a well-ordered religious life. Most Catholics readers will understand that more than a change of uniform is at work: In her floor-length white habit with black veil and a rosary around her waist, [Sister Mary Jordan] Hoover is the picture of...

On 15 December 2007, Wreaths Across America will be conducting its annual wreath laying at Arlington National Cemetary. This is a request for all DCFReepers and members of the DC Chapter of Protest Warrior to join me in lending a hand.

ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 11, 2007 – Vice President Richard B. Cheney today remembered millions of veterans at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month at Arlington National Cemetery. Navy veteran Neil Koski, a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Honor Guard, pulls on his gloves prior to the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2007. Koski and other members of the honor guard passed out programs prior to the ceremony. Photo by Melinda L. Larson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “More than 20 million of our fellow citizens...

The legacy of Pope John Paul II and his love of young people will live on in the form of the newest Catholic high school currently under construction in the Arlington Diocese. Pope John Paul the Great Catholic High School will open its doors next fall — and its namesake is an “incredible witness (who) had great respect for youth,” said Dominican Sister Mary Jordan Hoover, principal. “He led the world, and especially the youth, to Christ,” she said. “He had a way of speaking in a personal way. There’s something very magnanimous about him. His witness was just incredible.”...

The two old sailors stepped side by side toward the Tomb of the Unknowns, carrying a memorial wreath to their shipmates between them. The crowd stood hushed in the autumn sun while the pair, in ball caps and blazers, approached the white marble monument, left their wreath, stepped back and saluted. A bugler had just played taps, and as the breeze rustled a majestic elm nearby, the moment was almost perfect: Few seemed focused on the jagged crack that zigzagged through the 48-ton stone like a scar, or the dings and chips in its surface. But away from the scene...

ARLINGTON, Va. , Oct. 12, 2007 – Hundreds of soldiers, family members and friends gathered at Arlington National Cemetery today to honor 12 soldiers killed in a helicopter crash Iraq earlier this year. Army honor guard soldiers hold 12 folded American flags during an interment ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 12 for 12 soldiers killed in Iraq 10 months ago. The soldiers, 10 from the Army National Guard and two from the active duty Army, were killed northeast of Baghdad when their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was shot down. Photo by Sgt. Mary Flynn, USA   (Click photo...