Arlington Cemetery sits on the grounds of a 1,100 acre plantation once owned by Lt. Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Anna Rudolph, who was a direct descendant of George and Martha Washington. By the end of May, 1861, the Lees had vacated the property and federal troops occupied the estate, using the Lee house (Arlington House) as headquarters. In 1864 Washington was flooded with wounded and dead soldiers from the North and the South. The first military burial took place on the grounds and by the end of the Civil War nearly 14,000 dead were buried on the old plantation.
Perhaps the best known memorial to those killed in service to their country is the Tomb of the Unknowns. (A World War 1 soldier was entombed there in 1921, servicemen from World War II and Korea in 1958, and a soldier from Vietnam in 1984. However, the Vietnam soldier was removed from the tomb and identified in 1998 through a very sophisticated DNA process.) A sentinel of the Third U.S. Infantry maintains vigil around the clock, the practice beginning in 1948. The sentinel paces 21 steps alongside the tomb, pauses 21 seconds, then returns. (I once read that the significance of "21" is 1+7+7+6 (1776) = 21.)
Some of the 300,000 people buried at Arlington National Cemetery are John and Jackie Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Joe Louis, Audie Murphy, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, George Westinghouse, Abner Doubleday, Walter Reed, Richard Byrd, Robert Peary, Thurgood Marshall and Matthew Henson.
My video:
