General Information
No entrance fees
Tram Tours available through Arlington National Cemetery Tours, Inc. for Adults: $19.50
The ANC parking facility is located at the main Memorial Avenue entrance, next to the Welcome Center.
$3.00 per hour, with a daily maximum of $12.00 a day for passenger vehicles.
How to Get There
From Washington, DC: Take 16th St NW, 17th St NW, Constitution Ave. NW and Arlington Mem Brg/Memorial Brg to Memorial Ave in Arlington. Continue straight to stay on Memorial Ave.
Overview
Arlington National Cemetery is a military cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., in whose 639 acres (259 ha) the dead of the nation's conflicts have been buried, beginning with the Civil War, as well as reinterred dead from earlier wars. The United States Department of the Army, a component of the United States Department of Defense (DoD), controls the cemetery.
The national cemetery was established during the Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, previously the estate of Mary Anna Custis Lee, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington and wife of Robert E. Lee. The Cemetery, along with Arlington House, Memorial Drive, the Hemicycle, and Arlington Memorial Bridge form the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in April 2014.
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs oversees the National Cemetery Administration's orders for placement of inscriptions and faith emblems at no charge to the estate of the deceased, submitted with information provided by the next of kin that is placed on upright marble headstones or columbarium niche covers. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently offers 63 authorized faith emblems for placement on markers to represent the deceased's faith.
The Tomb of the Unknowns is part of the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater. The Memorial Amphitheater has hosted state funerals and Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies. Ceremonies are also held for Easter. About 5,000 people attend these holiday ceremonies each year. The structure is mostly built of Imperial Danby marble from Vermont. The Memorial Display room, between the amphitheater and the Tomb of the Unknowns, uses Botticino stone, imported from Italy. The amphitheater was the result of a campaign by Ivory Kimball to construct a place to honor America's servicemen/women. Congress authorized the structure on March 4, 1913. Woodrow Wilson laid the cornerstone for the building on October 15, 1915. The cornerstone contained 15 items including a Bible and a copy of the Constitution.
The amphitheater has an encircling colonnade with a latticed roof that once supported a web of vines. The amphitheater has a marble dais, known as "the rostrum", which is inscribed with the U.S. national motto found on the Great Seal of the United States, E pluribus unum ("Out of many, one"). The rostrum was designed by General Montgomery C. Meigs, then Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army. The amphitheater seats 1,500 people and has hosted speakers such as William Jennings Bryan.
Among the most frequently visited sites in the cemetery is the grave of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, who is buried nearby along with their son Patrick and their stillborn daughter Arabella. Kennedy's remains were interred there on March 14, 1967, a reinterment from his original Arlington burial site, some 20 feet (6.1 m) away, where he was buried in November 1963. The grave is marked with an "eternal flame". The remains of his brothers, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, are buried nearby. The latter two graves are marked with simple crosses and footstones. On December 1, 1971, Robert Kennedy's body was re-interred 100 feet (30 m) from its original June 1968 burial site.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Arlington National Cemetery", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
