Are “Unknown” Headstones a Cover for Bad Record-Keeping?
The identities of at least five soldiers buried at Arlington National Cemetery have been lost to faulty record-keeping, Salon reports. In four of these cases, remains were marked as “unknown” due to archival problems, and in another, the remains of one soldier were placed on top of another in a single grave. “In addition to the famous Tomb of the Unknowns,” Salon says, “there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unknown soldiers buried there, dating back to the Civil War.” Now it’s becoming apparent that some of these are the work of bad bureaucracy. According to Salon’s investigation, many of the unidentified remains were found in a cemetery landfill known as the “borrow pit,” a site ordinarily used to store excess dirt. Officials say that if a plot were reserved for a married couple, urns could be displaced while unearthing the grave in order to add new remains to the plot. Army officials refused to comment, citing their own internal investigation into the matter. Read original story
