Arlington headstone update

I learned this weekend that, in regards to the Washington Post article about the discarded headstones that I wrote about last week, family members had contacted the author of that article, Christian Davenport and I’ve been waiting for an updated article. Here’s the explanation, such as it is;

The cemetery’s new management team did not know about the headstones in the stream until they were told last week by The Washington Post. They vowed to remove them as soon as possible and dispose of them in accordance with a 1994 policy that dictates that discarded stones be crushed and recycled.

So much for the continuity of institutional memory – the whole reason we have a bureaucracy in the first place. Several people sent us tips which we forwarded to Davenport, but by that time, family members had contacted him as well;

Relatives of J. Warren McLaughlin, a retired Navy captain and veteran of World Wars I and II whose replaced headstone was found in the streambed at Arlington, had a different opinion, saying last week that they were “appalled.”

As well they should be. Regardless of which so-called management team is in charge, someone should have rectified this long before it news. Do you mean to tell me that no one had noticed the headstones in the past year? One of our eagle-eyed readers recognized the problem five years ago;

Category: Politics