Grave Reckoning

That’s because, until last month, it was in the running to be the new tomb. Instead, it’s a massive piece of stone without a home – a victim not of inferior quality or excessive price, but of politics, Washington-style.
The story of the possible replacement of the monument in Arlington, Va., began more than four years ago. Stone Business, along with other media, ran several articles detailing the efforts in Marble, Colo., of the Yule Quarry, the origin of the original monument stone, to extract just the right block for possible replacement.
The owners of the quarry did the work at the apparent behest of the federal Department of the Army, which oversees the operations at Arlington. The effort picked up a bit more steam as John Haines, a car dealer in Glenwood Springs, Colo., offered to transport the block cross-country on his dime, where it could be carved in the style of the original.
Finally, the workers at Colorado Yule tipped what they thought would be the perfect block. It came out of the gallery and onto a flatbed, ready for hauling back East. And then the trailer sat. And sat. And ….
… It went nowhere. Instead, the idea of replacing the monument became a cause célèbre for a few days on the banks of Potomac late this summer, as various groups and members of that new center of influence, the blogosphere, decried what seemed to be a sudden effort to sully a national monument to the fallen in our armed forces
The root problem in all of this is the condition of the monument at Arlington’s Memorial Amphitheater. Cracks appeared less than 10 years after its installation in 1932, and two particular horizontal ruptures keep growing larger, despite repair efforts.
(One point of clarification here; no remains are actually within the stone in question. Although it resembles a sarcophagus, the monument sits atop the tomb holding the unknown soldier for World War I, buried in 1921; the remains of unknown soldiers from World War II and the Korean War were interred nearby in 1958.)
Cemetery Superintendent John C. Metzler Jr. didn’t make much of a secret about the concept of replacing the stone; it appeared in an article in the May 23, 2003, Washington Post. With all the claims of clandestine operations concerning all of the federal government today, it’s hard to claim a cover-up with that day’s headline: “Unknowns Memorial to be Replaced.”
Follow-up articles appeared in the Post and other media – including Stone Business – since then. Cemetery officials tempered the initial impetus to just replace the stone, and offered a lengthy document on June 1, 2006, detailing options of repairing or replacement, along with a process to receive comments before making a decision.
Not everyone agreed with the idea of replacement, including the local field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP). In a letter to Metzler, the officer noted the NTHP didn’t support replacement, and also noted that various government agencies “already had agreed” to replace the monument.
A preservation expert who wrote a 1990 study for the cemetery on the monument’s condition also didn’t favor replacement. The expert noted this during the official review; however, the expert also met with Senate Armed Services Committee staffers on Sept. 13 in a deft sidestep of the cemetery’s process.
The NTHP officer, meanwhile, also instigated an online campaign against replacement.
On Sept. 20, he wrote in his blog that the tomb, “remains at serious risk,” and the Army was “rushing” to finalize a replacement option by the end of the month.
On Sept. 22, U.S. Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) moved to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008, requiring the Secretaries of Veterans Affairs and the Army to prepare a report on the possible replacement of the monument. It also called for no action to be taken until half a year after the report’s submission. (Update: The amendment became part of the final Defense Authorization Act signed by President Bush in early 2008.)
The reason, cited one of Sen. Akaka’s aides in a Washington Post interview, is that, “very few people knew about it,” and that the junior Senator from the Aloha State only found out about it “last month.”
Maybe the senator’s staff should check their Post subscription, since they didn’t get those four years of articles. And it’s a stretch that the process occurred without public knowledge, since a Web link to that 2006 document on the monument is (as of early this month) on the Arlington National Cemetery’s home page.
Finally, in the Oct. 29 Post, Metzler let the replacement concept crumble. “I’ve learned a lot more about this,” he said, “and it’s certainly clear to me today that there’s a lot more than just buying a block of marble.”
After four years of study and a detailed report last year from his own staff? Let’s go to the quick translation of how things work in Washington: The right people know how to yank the chain their way. Congress barks. The government heels.
Apparently, some people didn’t like a possible outcome, so they snagged a public process to kill it. The losers here are a bunch of proud quarry workers who thought – with the government’s consent – that they were doing a great thing. And then there’s John Haines and his noble intention, ending up with a flatbed of stone.
The lesson here? When any government comes calling with some noble bit of work, you shouldn’t hesitate to step in and do your duty. Just have them sign a change-order form at the same time.
Undated. And blank.