Army Misplaces Bodies at Arlington

Flickr/ <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/imageme/448127629//">Matt</a> (Creative Commons)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In recent years, the military has been criticized for not equipping downrange troops with enough armor and not providing disabled veterans with proper medical and mental health care. Now, the military is under fire for disrespecting its fallen at Arlington National Cemetery. Workers there misidentified or misplaced a whopping 211 bodies, Pentagon officials announced Thursday. “That all ends today,” Army Secretary John McHugh said, adding, “The majority of the findings in this report are deeply troubling and simply unacceptable.” McHugh also told reporters that the service has forced out the cemetery’s two civilian leaders and appointed a new chief.

The announcement follows a year-long investigation by Salon‘s Mark Benjamin into careless management at the cemetery, known as America’s “sacred ground.” In one instance, cemetery officials reburied the cremated remains of an unknown soldier whose urn was recovered in a dirt landfill. They also found unidentified remains in supposedly empty graves, misplaced headstones in a historic section of the cemetery, and buried one service member on top of another soldier in the same grave. Benjamin’s work, which began last summer, led to the Army investigation whose results were announced today.

“I’ve been extremely frustrated that the national media hasn’t seemed to want to touch this story with a 10-foot-pole,” Benjamin told Politics Daily today. As for the Army, he said, “Though they claim they’re trying to act in a spirit of transparency and with speed on this matter, these problems have been going on for years.”

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate