# Nice. Arlington Cemetery screws with dead military. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 14, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092 "2010-06-14T03:43:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092/21 "2010-06-15T13:59:00Z")
So… he’s a troll? I keed, I keed! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092/22 "2010-06-17T02:13:03Z")
> [@JXJohns](#): > > One doesn’t have to die in combat to be buried there. For example – in the case I mentioned above, he was a WWII veteran. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092/23 "2010-06-17T14:56:39Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > It is a grave problem and should be taken seriously. Make no bones about it, we will get to the bottom of this. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092/24 "2010-06-19T04:57:38Z")
What is the big deal? You are dead…so what if you are at the “wrong address”? I mean, if they aren’t going to exhume you, who cares? In colonial-era grave yards, most of the headstones have been moved. Which makes locating somebody difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092/25 "2010-06-19T14:14:15Z")
What’s the big deal? Well, you might want to ask the surviving family members. And this isn’t the colonial era. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092/26 "2010-06-19T15:29:13Z")
My ex-Darling Marcie’s father died a week ago. He joined the Marine Corps the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His ashes were sent to Arlington for internment; I would be enraged and she would be broken hearted if they were treated less than respectfully. Jokes about this matter are inappropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092/27 "2010-06-20T06:59:46Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Here’s a run-down on the problems found so far: > > \*Graves listed as unused (empty) have unidentified bodies buried in them. > \*Graves not marked. > \*Graves marked with the wrong names. > \*Cremains mishandled, including some urns chucked into a pile of dirt that would be used to fill graves. These don’t sound like anything that isn’t fairly common in most cemeteries. My uncle, after retirement, was the grave-siter at the town cemetery in a mid-sized town in rural Minnesota. He mentioned all the first 3 as common in the cemetery, especially on older graves. The fourth one didn’t happen, just because at that time, cremation was almost never done in that town. It was quite common to find that an ‘empty’ spot in a family plot was not actually empty, and that the empty spot was elsewhere in the section. And any records mare than about 40-50 years old were either inaccurate, vague, or no longer legible. And this is in a cemetery considerably younger than Arlington National. So it’s nothing unusual, I’d think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-arlington-cemetery-screws-with-dead-military/543092.md?page=1)