An Arlington Article
The Navy Times recently published an interesting, if short, article on Arlington National Cemetery. It gives a brief rundown of the Cemetery’s history, and gives a few vital statistics.
The article also lists a few less-well-known facts about the cemetery. Three examples:
- The Cemetery’s founder’s son – Lieutenant John Rodgers Meigs, son of cemetery founder MG Montgomery Meigs – is buried there.
- Tombstones with gold lettering (there are over 400) are the final resting place of Medal of Honor recipients.
- A 3-year-old girl who perished on board American Airlines Flight 77 at the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 whose remains were never identified is memorialized in Arlington, only several hundred feet from the Pentagon.
There are a number of other fascinating facts in the short article, with brief explanations/background for each. If you have a few minutes, IMO reading it is definitely worth the time.
Author’s note: as multiple commenters have noted below, the identity of the 3 year old buried in the mass grave for the Pentagon is in fact known. As the link provided by Fm2176 notes, the name of the young girl killed at the Pentagon was Dana Falkenberg. The original Navy Times article indicated the young girl’s remains were “unidentified” and buried in a mass grave at Arlington. However, the Navy Times not indicate that her identity was in fact known and did not give her name.
In fact, no individually-identifiable remains were ever found for Falkenberg and four other individuals – Rhonda Rasmussen, Ronald Hemenway, James Lynch, and Ronald Golinski. Falkenberg and these other four individuals are memorialized in the mass grave for 9/11 at Arlington.
My apologies for the error in the original article.
Category: Historical
Good article, The Confederate section of the cemetery has a very nice monument in it, dedicated by the former Secretary of the Navy Hillary Abner Herbert, former Colonel of the 8th Alabama Infantry. There are 2 members of that unit buried there, who died as POWs in a nearby hospital.
“The sole unknown from the 9/11 Pentagon Attack – a 3-year-old girl on board American Airlines Flight 77 – is buried in Arlington, only several hundred feet from the Pentagon.”
Hmmm. That’s interesting that a passenger on AAL77 would be unidentified. You would think that, even if she was that young, she would have been on the manifest.
I have a couple of uncles buried there as well as my mother. My father (25 years US Army) will be buried there as well when he passes.
Probably my work access, but the story isn’t coming up for me.
That said, how can there be an “unknown” from that-particularly a three year old girl? Wasn’t she missed or somewhere or reported missing?
Horribly written article. The first bullet comment is a train wreck.
The 3-year girl is not unknown. Her name is Dana Falkenberg. Her remains we’re never identified.
Although you’re referring to the wrong bullet comment in both my article and the original Navy Times source, your point is a good one. That error has been corrected above.
The information on the girl’s name was not contained in the original Navy Times article, which referred to her as “unidentified”. This in turn led to the error in my original article.
Hondo, thank you for this article. I always love hearing the history of our nation’s most honored resting place.
http://arlingtoncemetery.net/pentagon-unidentified03.htm
Here’s some info on the unknowns.
Reading stories about the 9/11 victims, especially the children, is not good for me, healthwise. It makes the hatred and rage come boiling right back up, as if it just happened yesterday. I can feel a vein throbbing in my forehead, and my hands clenching and unclenching as if trying to strangle someone. Whatever we’ve done to those jihadi fuckstains in the 13 years since, it wasn’t nearly enough.
I couldn’t agree more with you Hayabusa…we tried to prosecute that war while concerned with civilian casualties. I am not certain we will have left any long term memory of the consequences of attacking the USA.
There are times when overwhelming, frightening levels of violence make a far better statement than concerns over the tender sensibilities of muslim shitbags…
oderint dum metuant
Arlington is one of the places I go to when stress and other things have me so occupied that I forget what really matters in life.
It brings life into focus. It gives me perspective.