WASHINGTON — An Army investigation has found that more than 200 remains at Arlington National Cemetery have been misidentified or misplaced, in a scandal marring the reputation of the nation’s pre-eminent burial ground for its honored dead since the Civil War.
Army Secretary John McHugh said Thursday that the cemetery’s two civilian leaders would be forced to step aside, and he appointed a new chief to conduct a more thorough investigation to sort out the mix-up.
“I deeply apologize to the families of the honored fallen resting in that hallowed ground who may now question the care afforded to their loved ones,” McHugh said at a Pentagon news conference.
Arlington National Cemetery is considered among the nation’s most hallowed burial sites, with more than 300,000 people buried there with military honors. An average of 30 funerals are conducted there every day.
Among those buried at the cemetery are troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well service members from past conflicts dating to the Civil War.
Famous presidents and their spouses, including members of the Kennedy family, also have been buried there. The cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington in northern Virginia, attracts more than 4 million visitors annually.
An Army investigation was launched last year after reports of employee misconduct, first reported by the website Salon . Led by the service’s inspector general, Lt. Gen. Steven Whitcomb, the investigation found lax management of the cemetery, where employees relied on paper records to manage the dozens of burials each week and maintain the thousands of existing graves.
Whitcomb said at least 211 remains were identified as potentially mislabeled or misplaced and that there could be more.
“We found nothing that was intentional, criminal intent or intended sloppiness that caused this. . . . But of all the things in the world, we see this as a zero-defect operation,” he told reporters Thursday.
Whitcomb could not say how old the mixed-up remains might be or from what conflict, saying only that the problem had been confined to three areas of the cemetery known as sections 59, 65 and 66.
Whitcomb said he did find two cases of mismarked graves in section 60, the area for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. He said those mistakes had been corrected.
Separately, the Army is investigating whether the cemetery’s deputy superintendent, Thurman Higginbotham, made false statements to service investigators. Higginbotham, who ran the day-to-day operations at the cemetery, has been accused by former employees of creating a hostile work environment and breaking into their e-mail systems.
Higginbotham is on administrative leave, pending further review.
