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ARLINGTON HAS GRAVE SITUATION
New York Post ^ | August 16, 2009 | JANON FISHER

Posted on 08/16/2009 8:18:33 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: arlington; arlingtoncemetery; burials; military
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan
My dad (WW2...German POW)and Mom are in the Columbarium. It took about 2 months to schedule each interment. My dad's had the band, catafalque, etc. My mom's was a dignified ceremony at my dad's niche with a minister only. They do know how to be respectful of those who gave for their country.
21 posted on 08/16/2009 9:37:03 PM PDT by originalbuckeye
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To: Lmo56
Get your facts straight ...

It was Quartermaster General Meigs who recommended that Arlington be used as a cemetery.

OK Grant was his boss and who masterminded the Rose Garden interment? Just so Lee would not come back to his property.

22 posted on 08/16/2009 9:41:03 PM PDT by Cheetahcat (Zero the Wright kind of Racist! We are in a state of War with Democrats)
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

I would like to thank your father for his service to this country.


23 posted on 08/16/2009 9:45:21 PM PDT by packrat35 (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money.- M Thatcher)
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To: El Gato

I really don’t think that this has to do with cutbacks but, it might be so...

There is a limited availability of burial spots and the military has a limited number of burials per day...


24 posted on 08/16/2009 9:50:22 PM PDT by Deagle
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To: Cheetahcat

OK Grant was his boss and who masterminded the Rose Garden interment? Just so Lee would not come back to his property.

***

Meigs wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton suggesting that Robert E. Lee’s estate Arlington, which had been confiscated by the Federal government, be used for a military cemetery. “The grounds about the mansion are admirably adapted to such a use,” Meigs wrote on 15 June 1864. That same day, Stanton informed Meigs that he would allot 200 acres of the estate as burial ground.

In August 1864, twenty-six men were buried around Mrs. Lee’s rose garden.

Who masterminded the Rose Garden interments ???

Probably Meigs himself - he had a HUGE hatred of the South and Robert E. Lee, although he had served under and admired Lee prior to the war.

He considered Lee a traitor ...


25 posted on 08/16/2009 10:34:39 PM PDT by Lmo56
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To: Deagle
There is a limited availability of burial spots and the military has a limited number of burials per day...

0bama could spend a small part of the stimulus money to solve this problem.

Of course he won't do it, he is still too busy using that money to repay his campaign contributors in the United States and all that foreign money he received.

26 posted on 08/16/2009 11:06:37 PM PDT by TYVets
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To: originalbuckeye

“My dad (WW2...German POW)and Mom are in the Columbarium. It took about 2 months to schedule each interment. My dad’s had the band, catafalque, etc. My mom’s was a dignified ceremony at my dad’s niche with a minister only. They do know how to be respectful of those who gave for their country.”

Similar for my dad. 3 war vet, WWII Africa/Germany POW, Korea, VN/Cambodia advisor. It took 2 months to get his ashes buried at Arlington, but they did the whole thing. Horse-drawn carriage with the polished wood box with his ashes, bugler, and salute. The minister happened to be the Chaplain for my cousin’s Maryland Guard unit. I was chosen to receive the flag, which I consider to be quite an honor. The absolute precision with which they carry out the rites and honors is amazing.
The whole ceremony took about half an hour from our leaving the reception center to our return there. The minister told us a bit about the men who serve as the honor guard and what it takes to be one of them. Also told us how many times a day they do what they do. At the time, it was 4 times a day, and that was before the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The little brochure about Arlington that they gave me was very interesting. All graves there are the same, officers and enlisted lie side-by-side. Each service branch “takes care of its own”.


27 posted on 08/17/2009 1:43:30 AM PDT by Mr Inviso (ACORN=Arrogant Condescending Obama Ruining Nation)
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To: 12Gauge687
The National Geographic Channel had a special Arlington: Field of Honor, in which they showed some of the hustle and bustle that was going on. The director of operations was having to coordinate multiple funerals at the same time, including one for an MIA from Vietnam who had finally returned home and for a Special Forces officer who had just been killed in Afghanistan. It was amazing the detail they went to in setting up these ceremonies.
28 posted on 08/17/2009 1:53:54 AM PDT by Stonewall Jackson (Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry. - Oliver Cromwell)
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To: Ev Reeman
... beside the Veterans Hospital debacle that is ...

Please clarify that. I must have missed it. What VA Hospital and when?

29 posted on 08/17/2009 6:41:49 AM PDT by Snickersnee (Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?)
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To: Lmo56
“Meigs wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton suggesting that Robert E. Lee’s estate Arlington, which had been confiscated by the Federal government, be used for a military cemetery. “The grounds about the mansion are admirably adapted to such a use,” Meigs wrote on 15 June 1864. That same day, Stanton informed Meigs that he would allot 200 acres of the estate as burial ground.

In August 1864, twenty-six men were buried around Mrs. Lee’s rose garden.

Who masterminded the Rose Garden interments ???

Probably Meigs himself - he had a HUGE hatred of the South and Robert E. Lee, although he had served under and admired Lee prior to the war.

He considered Lee a traitor ...”

that is one account I heard, But here are others and nothing happened that Grant did not want to happen! including Sherman's atrocities.

30 posted on 08/17/2009 7:09:01 AM PDT by Cheetahcat (Zero the Wright kind of Racist! We are in a state of War with Democrats)
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To: packrat35

Thank you.


31 posted on 08/17/2009 7:19:59 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement ("World Peace 1.20.09".... um, what happened?)
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To: Deagle
I really don’t think that this has to do with cutbacks but, it might be so... There is a limited availability of burial spots and the military has a limited number of burials per day...

Maybe not at Arlington, where the limiting factor might be availability of grave sites and the desire to have each funeral be quasi private.

However the lack of honor guards for the much larger population being burried at other National Cemeteries (Like the "Punch Bowl in Hawaii or Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio) or at the various State Veterans Cemeteries (There's a fairly new one adjacent to Fort Hood, where my coworkers' husband remains lie), or even in other non veteran's cemetaries, is a direct result of the much diminshed numbers in the armed forces, all services and componenents.

32 posted on 08/17/2009 4:13:00 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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