Dorell, Oren. "Arlington Fiasco Destroys Faith." USA Today 16 Sept. 2010, sec. A pg 3A Print
This article is about a father who believes that workers at Arlington cemetary may hav mad mistakes at his son's burial site. Heath Warner was a Marine private stationed in Iraq in 2006. On November 26, 2006, Heath was killed by an improvised explosive device. He was only 19 years old at the time. He was subsequently buried in Arlington, Virginia because his father, Scott Warner felt it was the right way to honor him. Warner stated, "It was our son's wishes to be buried at Arlington and we considered it the highest honor we could hive hime." Scott had heard about strage happenings at the cemetery. He had heard rumors of a grave that was misplaced. When more strange reports came in, he started to get more suspicious. In June a report was found stating that there were 211 cases of misplaced or unmarket graves in three of the seventy sections in Arlington. Additionally, many urns had dirt from a landfill that was used to fill graves. A team of the new cemetery management is now workin on correcting these issues. It is estimated that htese issues could affect up to 6,600 of 300,000 graves. When the Warner family asked for a report on Heath's grave, the report came back with errors and omissions. Scott Warner then arranged for Heath's body to be exhumed. They used pictures of Heath's tattoos to identify the body. "The method of identification today was very gruesome and very primitive. There are other ways this could have been done that would have been more dignified," Scott remarked. He believes that the cemetery officials should have had a third party come in to verify DNA and fingerprint identifications. They should not have relied on the photographs of the tatoos for identification.
The article was important to me because my grandfather was buried in Arlington cemetery. He was retired Marine colonel. The article makes me wonder if my grandfather was buried correctly. While reading the article, I began to think if I sould do some research into his grave. The article is important to society because the family and friends of people buried in Arlington care about the remains of their lost loved ones. If they found out that their loved ones were not buried where they believed them to be, they would be very hurt.
I found this article to be very shocking. I would never have thought that a burial site as prominent as Arlington would have these issues. This is especially disconcerting because some of the most distinguished military leaders of our country are buried there. I also liked how the article described how the body was identified.
4 comments:
I think that this article is very surprising. When I think of the Arlington cemetery, I think of how clean and well – kept it is. It is amazing to me that a solider’s grave would be kept in this manner. I liked that the article went into much detail when describing how the body was identified. I also thought that when the article mentioned that there are two hundred and eleven other cases that have unmarked graves in three of the seventy sections of the Arlington cemetery. It surprised me when the article had mentioned that the problems with the Arlington cemetery could affect approximately 6,600 of the 300,000 graves at the cemetery. Hearing this story may make other families wonder if their family members were properly buried in the Arlington cemetery. If this issue was presented in a different cemetery, it would not have been such a problem. But since this issue occurred in such a pristine place it became a story that people will be thinking about for a while. This article review was very well written. I think that maybe if you went into more detail about the article than this would be a better article. I think that this was a good article to choose from and I think that more people could relate to this story in way that you do. From this article, I learned that there are definitely issues in the Arlington cemetery that no one else may know of until an article like this is presented. It makes me think of all the other cemeteries dedicated to the American soldiers and makes me wonder if there are similar issues in those cemeteries.
I thought that Jake’s article was extremely well presented, first off because you could tell when he was speaking that he really knew what he was talking about and how well informed he was about the article. When he was talking, I could really tell he hadn’t just glanced over the first few lines and then rambled on. Also when talking, he was able to give good detailing on the father’s process discovering the truth about his son. He accomplished this by going in order of events and giving the readers proper dates to document the time passed over the father’s research and studies regarding his son. Another thing Jake did well in the written article itself was tell the story as if it was something he knew personally, it didn’t feel like it had just been a copy and pasted news article but more along the lines of one person talking to another. I really enjoyed reading more about this.
However, the review could have been a little better by putting the direct link onto the review of the article making it simpler for the responders to find as a way to read the actual article itself. Also A better reaction to his views on how the article was written would have been interesting to read so we knew what his thoughts were and we were able to get a better idea of the criticism. However, I think we can all agree that because this is the first week of current events, it is fair that there are bound to be mistakes, so kudos to the article as a whole Jake.
One thing I was really interested in was how he related the article back to his own family and talked about his grandfather and how the relationship with this story really connected back to him in a personal way.
I thought that the article summary was very thorough and gave a good understanding of what the article was about. The topic was very surprising especially since my dad runs a small cemetery and I can’t imagine him ever confusing bodies. It also made me think about all the people who are serving our country over seas who might die and not even be buried in a place where their friends and family can honor them. I also like how Jake related it to something personal as that always makes things more interesting and meaningful. The third good thing about his article review was the way he used short quotes to give the most important points of the article.
I did, however, think that the actual review part could have been longer especially compared to the summary. I also would have been interested to learn what the military had to say about the mix-ups. That may been due to the lack of that perspective in the article but since the article was not online I didn’t read it. The article was especially shocking to me because the military is always associated with order, discipline ad honor for those who serve but a mistake like this is the opposite of all those things. If the military can’t even bury their fallen comrades in the right graves how can they expect to launch an organized defense or attack?
I was very surprised by this article. I found it very shocking to learn that there were thousands of graves that are either misplaced or unmarked in the Arlington cemetery. It is very disturbing to learn that fallen members of America's armed forces were buried with such little care and respect. I thought Jake did an excellent job in presenting this article. It is evident that he did a lot of research on this issue. He provides the readers with shocking statistics, such as up to 6,600 of the 30,0000 graves in Arlington may not be properly marked. He added how his is personally affected by this issue by informing the reader that his grandpa is buried in Arlington cemetery.
This article was very well written. It was filled with interesting information that immediately draws the readers attention. However, I would've have been interested in hearing the military's opinion on this matter and how they managed to let this happen. After reading this article, it made we wonder if other burial grounds for fallen American soldiers have similar issues.
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