Saturday, October 10, 2009
When military officials buried the unidentified remains of a Vietnam War soldier in 1984, they figured it was likely to be the last “unknown soldier” memorial for Arlington National Cemetery, given modern advances in DNA technology. In fact, that soldier was later identified as Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, and he was reburied. But thanks entirely to a bureaucratic snafu, Arlington officials buried another veteran with an “unknown” tombstone because they lost the paperwork identifying who the person was.
The placing of a nameless marker above grave 449, in section 68 of the cemetery, came years after the remains were originally interred. It wasn’t until 2003, when cemetery workers went to bury another soldier, that the unknown soldier’s remains were discovered, prompting the realization that Arlington had no idea who it was, or when they were put into the earth.
Arlington officials quietly ignored the problem for six years, until Salon.com began running stories on problems at the nation’s “most sacred shrine,” including the fate of the unidentified soldier.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Arlington Cemetery Buries Unknown Soldier for First Time in 25 Years (by Mark Benjamin, Salon)
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