Posted on 06/22/2010 7:54:23 PM PDT by Patriot1259
After 19 years of service as Superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery, John C. Metzler, Jr. will retire effective Friday, July 2, 2010, due to an ongoing investigation of gross "mismanagement," involving the misplacement of graves, unidentified bodies and sloppy record-keeping at the cemetery.
Mr. Metzler first came to Arlington National Cemetery in 1951, as a young boy (age 4), when his father, John C. Metzler, Sr. became the Superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery. John C. Metzler, Sr. was ANC's Superintendent from 1951 to 1972. John Metzler, Sr. passed away in May 1990.
Growing up at Arlington National Cemetery gave John Metzler, Jr. a distinct advantage in the cemetery's operations. One of four children, Mr. Metzler lived on the cemetery with his family until he enlisted in the United States Army in the 1960s. He fought in the Vietnam War.
After returning from the war, Jack Metzler worked for a short while as a civilian government employee. He worked as superintendent of multiple national cemeteries. Then, in 1991, Mr. Metzler returned to Arlington National Cemetery as its Superintendent.
With his retirement day drawing near, he has very "mixed" emotions about leaving. He refers to Arlington National Cemetery as his "home," a home he knew growing up, playing with his siblings on the cemetery grounds, watching momentous events unfold.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecypresstimes.com ...
It’s a sad story. Obviously, Arlington National Cemetery has been Mr. Metzler’s whole life. On the other hand, it’s hard to reconcile the ‘mismanagement’ and misplaced bodies. I’d not heard of that before this thread.
I am not your judge. I hope your conscious is clear.
Was he due to retire before all this stuff started to happen?
So in other words, this is FINE with you?
Disrespecting the dead bodies and misplacing bodies of loved ones?
Geesh!
BTW, by making the comment,
“I am not your judge. I hope your conscious is clear.”
YOU just made the dreaded JUDGEMENT CALL to someone else.
Hypocrisy is not becoming - even to you.
Yeah, I saw another story on this guy a few wks ago.
I don’t know what the heck he was doing there, but sure doesn’t seem like he was doing a very good job.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
He may have served his country loyally the past four decades, but his gross negligence with respect to the bodies of these American heroes, is unforgivable, IMHO.
Do not put words in my mouth. I still have men I served with in 68/69 lost/MIA, and; I know damn well their remains are yet to be found. I am not thrilled by this man, but; the marking of graves, the names being correct, starts with the graves and registration personnel (men and women, too) in country. It starts with the man’s unit and the entire medical system in country. The body/remains are supposed to be carefully ID’d, marked etc.I have not read the details. I damn sure know no Vietnam Vet would do this.
Do these bodies fly home via only full time AD Air Force unit(s) or do NG and Reserve types get involved? What proceedures are followed by local Muslims employed, if applicable? I can tell you I never flew home with a body. How do we know the bodies were marked, tagged, plus the coffins were marked properly? Even I flew home with a toe tag when wounded twice.
Yes, this man was the director. The boss. I can tell you he was not tagging bodies in theater, and; someone or more people from the start to his body intake area to burial blew it.
I damn sure do not think he did this with malice, nor did he screw up except to trust the wrong GS type or types, or military.
So he lost his job. Where is the evidence he did this due to negligence. Another man under the bus.Amazing how the damn left slams the military.
Due to the demand for burials at Arlington, and the limits of their land, the staff needed to prepare the sites and to perform the services, etc., there is typically a couple of months delay before burial.
The bodies are stored a mortuaries in the DC area. There was a story not long ago about a funeral home in Falls Church, VA, and some mix up with bodies being held for Arlington burial. I hadn’t heard of the Metzler investigation until reading this thread last night.
We don’t know if he’s been set up or if he really is responsible for gross mismanagement/neglect. But I find it highly improbably that anyone would go into that job without the highest respect for our troops, dead and alive. Especially in Metzler’s case given his own background.
There is little more moving than a military burial at Arlington, that’s for sure.
You are correct. Even CMH recipients have a two month wait.
FYI: I just received this email from VA Senator Warner (D)
Like most Virginians, I was appalled when we recently learned of widespread problems at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia: misplaced and misidentified remains, a chaotic management environment and a total lack of accountability at our nation’s most pre-eminent military burial site.
The report by the Army’s Inspector General on June 10th documented many of these problems, and I appreciate Army Secretary John McHugh’s willingness to publicly disclose, and his pledge to correct, the mess at Arlington.
What we’ve seen and read in recent weeks seriously disrespects the memories and the service of the 330,000 military men and women buried at the nearly 150-year-old cemetery in Northern Virginia.
These challenges have been on mind almost every day as I drive by Arlington National Cemetery on my way to work on Capitol Hill. In fact, my father — an 85-year-old U.S. Marine veteran of Iwo Jima — often has mentioned to me that he would be honored to be interred at Arlington alongside our nation’s other military heroes when his time comes.
This week, I asked the Army Inspector General to visit my office to provide a more detailed briefing on the management lapses and challenges at Arlington. Afterwards, I had a good conversation with Army Secretary McHugh to further explore ways that we might be helpful in fixing what’s obviously broken at Arlington.
As a guy who comes from the IT world, and as a public official who focuses on government accountability and management competence, I was especially troubled to learn that the Army has spent at least $5.5 million in recent years on three separate contracts to digitize and automate the burial registration records at Arlington. I was extremely surprised to learn this week that cemetery officials never made a serious effort to incorporate computerized records or adopt other modern IT processes in their day-to-day functions at Arlington.
In fact, they continued to rely on paper records. According to the Inspector General, most of Arlington’s burial information is handwritten on tens of thousand of 3x5 index cards.
I told Secretary McHugh that this situation is simply unacceptable: it means we are just one fire, flood or coffee spill away from losing the only records of who is buried at Arlington, and where. That is extremely disrespectful to the memories of the brave men and women who have answered the call to duty and proudly served our nation.
The Army has announced an aggressive effort to further identify and correct the challenges at Arlington. The cemetery’s top two managers have been relieved of their duties, and military officials have launched a longer-term effort to fix these problems.
But as I told the Secretary of the Army this week, there are certain steps we can and must take today to preserve and protect these fragile records.
I have reached out to our friends in Northern Virginia’s vibrant IT community to see if they might be willing to help. I was not surprised to find that leaders of the Northern Virginia Technology Council are eager to provide, at no cost, whatever short-term technical assistance is needed to begin digitizing the paper records at Arlington.
This certainly would go a long way toward restoring the credibility of the mission at Arlington National Cemetery, and I am committed to work with the Army and the NVTC to provide whatever assistance we might be able to provide to help fix this mess.
Since 1864, Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia has occupied a special place in the hearts and minds of Americans. To me, and most likely to you, it represents hallowed ground.
We owe our military men and women, our veterans and their families, a respectful and competent effort that fully honors their service and sacrifice to our nation.
Army officials have established a call center for families to try to address concerns about burial discrepancies at Arlington. The phone number is (703) 607-8199, and it operates from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., EDT, Monday through Friday.
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