Arlington is a “time machine” – the stories of which chronicle not only our military history but the people, places and events that have made ours a vibrant, colorful nation.  At Arlington, American history is not black and white words on a page because you are standing within feet of the very people who wrote the American story – people whose lives changed the landscape of our culture.

The sheer number of links to every facet of American life and culture is staggering.

Abner Doubleday – the man wrongly credited with inventing baseball was a hero at Gettysburg and saw some of the worst fighting in the Civil War is enshrined in Section 1.

Pierre L’Enfant – the Revolutionary War soldier who became the “architect” of our nation’s capital lies in a plot overlooking the city he helped build.

William Jennings Bryan – the 3 time Presidential Candidate best known for his famous “Cross of Gold” speech and the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial – buried in Section 4 on a hillside, hidden behind a tree.

John Foster Dulles - the most visible Secretary of State in American history and Time Magazine’s 1954 Man of the Year was awarded the Medal of Freedom shortly before his death and received a special civilian waiver to be buried at Arlington.

Archibald Willingham Butt was an aide to Theodore Roosevelt who lost his life on the Titanic. 

Leslie Coffelt was a Police Officer killed across the street from the White House during an assassination attempt on President Truman.  Ironically, at the time President Truman was en route to Arlington to attend the funeral of Sir John Dill, the famed British World War II Field Marshal.  Three days later, Truman returned to Arlington for the funeral of Officer Coffelt.

Capitol Police Officers Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson were shot and killed on July 24, 1998, when a deranged a man burst through the security checkpoint at the United States Capitol and threatened innocent tourists.

Richard McKinley was a Specialist 4th Class in the US Army when he was killed in 1961 by an explosion at a nuclear plant in Idaho.  Even today, his body is so contaminated with long-life radioactive isotopes that he is buried in a lead-lined casket, covered in concrete, and placed in a metal vault.  His remains cannot be moved from their current location without the approval of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Many memorials honor important events in American history – a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt’s famed “Rough Riders” – a memorial to the fallen rescuers who died in Iran trying free American Hostages – a monument to the 220 Marines killed in the 1983 attack on the Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon - a tribute to honor the victims of Pan Am Flight 103. 

A Nurses Memorial stands in Section 21 to honor the sacrifices of military nurses throughout history, and the first memorial visitors see is the Women in Military Service Memorial prominently placed at the entrance to Arlington Cemetery.

Also just outside the gates of Arlington is the famous Marine Corps Iwo Jima Memorial.  The enormous statue is sculpted in the image of perhaps the most famous photograph in military history – the raising of the American flag over Mt. Surabachi on the island of Iwo Jima.  Three men shown in the photograph and depicted on the memorial today rest at Arlington.

General George C. Marshall was the author of the Marshall Plan  for the reconstruction of Europe after WWII.  Marshall was not only one of America’s greatest military leaders but also is the only member of any military in history to ever receive the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Earl Warren not only led the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, but as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he is also wrote the unanimous decision in that landmark “Brown vs. Board of Education” decision in 1954.

Heads of state and key leaders from around the world - from Queen Elizabeth to Fidel Castro - have all paid their respect to the men and women at Arlington, and even today Arlington is a key stopping point on almost any official state visit to the United States.