Problems at Arlington?

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Anti-Gun PayPal shuts down Soldiers' Angels Contributions

I am back in DC after gallivanting about the country for a while, and yesterday I sat on a panel on media coverage of the war on terror at the Conference for Army Historians. Fun and entertaining topic, panel and crowd and I got to joust a bit with CBS News & 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan. Another panelist was National Correspondent for Salon.com Mark Benjamin, and he has done a fair amount of reporting on soldier and veterans issues including an ongoing series about Arlington Cemetery. He has found what seem to be some serious issues about operations there. I think all larger organizations have problems, but we don't have ground much more hallowed than this so I think it is well worth looking at. Apparently so does the military as an investigation has been ordered. Take a look at his pieces and please let me know if any of you can shed any light on this.

The Salon articles exposed tangled burial paperwork at Arlington that has contributed to confusion among the graves. Former and current employees claim that, among other things, the cemetery doesn't know the location of all the remains. Other remains may not match the headstones placed above them. The articles also showed that the cemetery, which is administered by the Army, disposes of photos, letters and other artifacts left on graves in the section set aside for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, even as similar artifacts left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial are preserved.

Posted by Uncle Jimbo on Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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