Families turned away from Arlington National Cemetery

[Sam McGee]

Annually, corporations and individuals donate funds to Arlington National Cemetery to purchase wreaths that are placed on the headstones at Arlington.

Families of those interred at Arlington are given priority treatment -- they apply for and are given entrance and parking tickets; a parking an assembly area is reserved for them; transportation is provided for those who need help to get to their family member's gravesite.

I'm a retired Army officer. My Army brat daughter is an attorney with a DC firm, she lives on Capitol Hill. She has several friends from our years in the Army whose family member(s) are interred at Arlington. For the past several years on this weekend, three of her friends come in from out of town, stay with her, then they go to Arlington where they place wreaths on the family graves then then place 200 wreaths on other graves. They are joined by volunteers who place wreaths on almost every grave at Arlington. And, yes, they have special wreaths for Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths.

Not this year. When daughter and her friends arrived, the family parking and assembly areas were filled and they were turned away. They could not find parking literally for miles. So -- they parked five miles away and took a cab.

A big part of the problem was tour buses filled with employees of companies that had donated funds to purchase the wreaths. It appeared -- though we can't prove this -- they were given priority behind families and ahead of volunteers. Daughter reports over 70 tour buses, some of them when signs showing corporate logos.

Another of her friends had brought, for the first time, her 92-yr-old grandmother to visit her son's grave (the father of my daughter's friend). At 92, she simply could not make the walk, cab ride, etc. They could find no one with authority to help the grandmother -- they left with grandmother in tears. Daughter and friends are taking grandmother back tomorrow when the crowds and tour buses are gone.

I'll be on the phone to Congress Monday as will daughter, her friends, the partners from her firm, and a LOT of unhappy families.

[hlthe2b]

1. I'd likewise be on the phone with Washington Post

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Is this Wreaths Across America? Those funds don't go to Arlington, they go to the nonprofit that

lays the wreaths. I'd take it up with them, since it's their event.

[Sam McGee]

3. Thanks. Will do.

[DURHAM D]

4. Interesting. My nephew and his family are going

to Arlington today to visit family graves. Hope they can get in.

[Sneederbunk]

5. Pvt. Bone Spurs is ultimately responsible for this.

[TeamPooka]

6. Pictures of the buses and their corporate logos filling the parking lot are needed to get

the publicity you seek to fix this issue.
Publicity will fix this.
No corporation wants the bad PR this will generate.

[leanforward]

7. The turn away ticks me off.

I don't care who they are. In this instance, is there big money behind the turn away.

Our elected offecals (misspelling intended) are to interested in bowing to their corporate masters.

On top of that, the same corporate masters are not paying (taxes) for that right.

We manage to go to Arlington every year or two.

[Demoiselle]

9. I'm going to borrow your misspelling, if I may. (Offecals) Thank you. This is terrible.

[TNNurse]

8. Please update us.

Thank you for speaking up.

[brooklynite]

10. UNREC-Incredibly misleading headline

Nobody was "turned away". They couldn't park because the parking lot was full. The gates were open, the Metro was running.

[haele]

13. Problem appeared to be the lack of someone to assist them with their elderly relative.

They couldn't effectively drop her off and accompany her to the gravesite while the driver could find someplace to park that was close enough and still spend some time with them, not could they apparently find anyone in charge that could help them accommodate the grandmother to see her son's grave while she was there. And apparently, they weren't letting taxis in to drive her up to the grave. Asking a fragile elderly person to hike to a gravesite and background from the Metro station is a bit much...
The problem seems to be was that whomever was doing the event didn't schedule the time in such a manner that they would be in and out quickly first thing so as not to affect other visitors.

When we did Wreaths across America last month, we were scheduled to start putting wreaths on graves an hour before the site was open to the public; the event was over and everyone encouraged to leave after two hours so normal visitors wouldn't be impacted.
Cold, but courteous. Especially during holiday season.

Haele

[benld74]

11. Were photos taken? THis is ALL the proof that is required

[Princess Turandot]

12. "Volunteers placed more than 245,000 wreaths at grave sites at the Arlington National Cemetery..."

Sounds like they accomplished their goals, despite the usual transpo log-jams.

Annual wreath laying draws huge crowds to Arlington

ARLINGTON, Va. — The weather was chilly but that didn’t stop huge crowds from heading to Arlington National Cemetery to help out with the annual wreath laying Saturday.

Traffic was jammed and sidewalks were packed with long lines of volunteers.

....Volunteers placed more than 245,000 wreaths at grave sites.

....“We waited in line for a long time and it was cold — but worth it,” said volunteer Gordon McKinley. “Some people are looking for individual graves and other people are just there doing their duty and honoring those who’ve served.”

https://wtop.com/arlington/2017/12/annual-wreath-draws-crowds/slide/1/

There are bus trips organized in several communities to bring out-of-area volunteers to Arlington to help with the wreath event, given how many wreaths they need to lay down. Some of the bused volunteers may even have relatives and/or friends buried there. If buses with volunteers (corporate sponsored or not) got there for the ceremonies at the beginning of the event, it's not really surprising that they were allowed to park when they arrived.