Some of this came out after the Arlington problems surfaced. Much of this is finally being corrected especially the lack of National Cemeteries, due to continued underfunding of the VA agency and now by the Shinseki administration much coming from the Recovery Funds, much needed extra funding and used in many ways to upgrade the whole of agency needs, with new cemeteries and expanding the existing, both long overdue, as we continue marching into wars especially of choice. Both Arlington and the VA National Cemeteries were working with antiquated record keeping as the rest of country, and world, were quickly moving forward with the modern technology that we use now and it still develops. They were bringing that in but at a snails pace, as well as for all record keeping related to the rapid growth of veterans from these wars quickly growing the needs, compared to businesses and even individuals. Apparently the Army wasn't spending enough on Arlington, as we started wars, from defense budgets and then wasted millions in trying to upgrade during the previous administration and congresses and both using more private contractors, the VA stayed grossly underfunded as two more wars were waged. Now that this has surfaced, and is being quickly corrected, we as a Country must maintain so this never happens again, part of our own Sacrifice, now a decade of not added to the previous decades, for those brothers and sisters who Sacrifice in Defense of Country and Constitution!
January 23 2012 - The Department of Veterans Affairs has found scores of misplaced headstones and at least eight cases of people buried in the wrong places at several military cemeteries across the country.
The review by the VA’s National Cemetery Administration follows the revelation of widespread burial problems at Arlington National Cemetery, which touched off congressional inquiries and a criminal investigation.
snip Although many of the errors at Arlington were caused by an antiquated paper-record system, VA officials said the problems at seven of its national cemeteries were largely the result of sloppy work during renovations. Headstones and markers were temporarily removed from the ground and reinserted in the wrong places.
Staff members at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio were testing the accuracy of a new cemetery map in July, for instance, and realized that 47 markers were one space over from where they were supposed to be.
The problem, they discovered, arose from a 2004 project to regrade the soil and realign the markers, which tend to shift as the ground moves. The markers were lifted and put back one plot away from the correct grave site.
snip A similar problem was discovered in November at Houston National Cemetery. In 2002, after a similar renovation, 14 grave markers were put in the wrong places. No one noticed the error at the time. A person was then buried in what officials thought was a family member’s grave site; it was actually one plot over.
VA officials first publicly acknowledged the problems after The Washington Post asked about the cemetery audits. In an interview Monday, Glenn Powers, the National Cemetery Administration’s deputy undersecretary for field operations, said the VA is working to put all headstones in the right places and attempting to contact affected families to explain and apologize. But because the affected graves cover a long period — from decades ago to recent years — it might be impossible to locate all the next of kin, he said. read more>>>
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