Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a great grand-daughter of Martha Washington. The cemetery is situated directly across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.. It is served by the Arlington Cemetery station on the Blue Line of the Washington Metro system.

In an area of 624 acres (2.53 km2), veterans and military casualties from each of the nation's wars are interred in the cemetery, ranging from the American Civil War through to the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pre-Civil War dead were reinterred after 1900.

Arlington National Cemetery and United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery are administered by the Department of the Army. The other national cemeteries are administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs or by the National Park Service. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) and its grounds are administered by the National Park Service as a memorial to Lee.

Arlington National Cemetery is divided into 70 sections, with some sections in the southeast portion of the cemetery reserved for future expansion. Section 60, in the southeast part of the cemetery, is the burial ground for military personnel killed in the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan. Section 21, also known as the Nurses Section, is the area of Arlington National Cemetery where many nurses are buried. The Nurses Memorial is located there. In the cemetery, there is a Confederate section with graves of soldiers of the Confederate States of America and a Confederate Memorial. There are 39 authorized faith emblems available for placement to represent the deceased's faith. See also, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs webpage "Available Emblems of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones" and "Markers" Markers

Privately-purchased markers used to be permitted in the cemetery, but since 2001 the areas that the cemetery permitted such markers in are filled. Nevertheless, the older sections of the cemetery have many diverse private markers placed prior to 2001, including artillery pieces.

Due to the ever-decreasing space at the cemetery, and that the nature of memorials is to take up space that could otherwise be used to bury an eligible servicemember, the army requires a joint or concurrent resolution from Congress before it will place new memorials onto the cemetery grounds. Still, there are several memorials on cemetery grounds, and groups regularly seek to use the ever-diminishing grounds for new memorials.

The memorial is built around a mast salvaged from the Maine's wreckage. The USS Maine Memorial served as the temporary resting place for foreign heads of state or government, Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippines and Ignacy Jan Paderewski of Poland, who died in exile in the United States during World War II.

The Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial was dedicated on May 20, 1986, in memory of the crew of flight STS-51-L, who died during launch on January 28, 1986. Astronauts Laurel Clark, David Brown and Michael Anderson are also buried in Arlington.

The Cairn, the Lockerbie memorial is a memorial to the 270 killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. In section 64, there is a memorial to the 184 victims of the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon. Miller was eligible for a memorial headstone in Arlington National Cemetery as a service member who died on active duty whose remains were not recoverable. At his daughter's request, a stone was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery in April 1992.

The Women in Military Service for America Memorial can be found at the Ceremonial Entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.

On May 15, 1997, after more than two decades of denying the existence of the "Secret War" in Laos during the Vietnam War conflict, the U.S. government officially acknowledged this once covert war, honoring its U.S. and Laos Hmong veterans with the opening of the Laos Memorial on the Arlington National Cemetery grounds, along a path between the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame and the Tomb of the Unknowns.