Depressing story of the day...

[El Mudo]

Mass fuckups at Arlington National Cemetery (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/11/2010-06-11_grave_mistakes_disgrace_war_heroes_at_arlington .html)

A scathing report by the Army's inspector general found numerous cases - they don't yet know how many - of mismarked, unmarked and empty graves at the cemetery, where more than 330,000 dead from the nation's wars have been interred since 1864.

There were also cases of graves being moved without the knowledge of the families, the investigation found.

Arlington's two top civilian officials have been forced out.



First, work crews buried the urn containing Grabe's remains in a plot that was already occupied. The casket of another deceased service member was interred several feet deeper.

The mistake went undiscovered until the family of that veteran visited Arlington and saw, to their shock, Grabe's headstone on the grave, according to Salon.com, whose reports on the macabre bungles at Arlington sparked the Army's probe.

Grabe's headstone and urn were hurriedly removed to another gravesite at Arlington. Her family wasn't told.

[A.J.]

I wonder whose ass Obama has to kick for this.

[El Mudo]

I wonder whose ass Obama has to kick for this.

Looks like they've already started clearing house, as the top two civillian officials have been forced out.

[El Mudo]

More on the story here (also has other links) (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/06/what_about_the_other_national.html)

Maybe the good news is that the Defense Department operates just two of the nation's more than 145 national cemeteries, Arlington and the Old Soldier's Home in Washington. The rest are operated by the National Park Service -- which runs 14 -- and the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration, which operates 131 sites in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

And here's the original Salon Article (http://www.salon.com/news/arlington_national_cemetery_investigation/index.html)

How many headstones at Arlington National Cemetery stand above the wrong graves? How many graves have no headstone at all? The Army Thursday identified more than 200 cases like this, but the reality is that many, many thousands of headstones at Arlington may have the wrong names on them and a similar number of graves may have no headstone whatsoever. All of this at a cemetery that bills itself as "Our Nation’s Most Sacred Shrine." The burial scandal at Arlington could be massive, and Army officials know it.

Army Secretary John McHugh and Lt. Gen. Steven Whitcomb admitted as much during a Thursday press conference, though McHugh repeatedly tried to keep the focus on preventing future burial mix-ups, rather than probing the past.

"That all ends today," McHugh told reporters, referring to the burial errors.

But it's clear Army officials know they may be sitting on a volcano of bad news. While other cemeteries computerized burial records years ago and track grave locations via satellite, Arlington keeps burial records on paper. In the Army's probe, Whitcomb said, its own investigators reviewed the paperwork for a small subset of graves at the cemetery.

Jesus Christ..../facepalm

[dino_electropolis]

Most disturbing part of that story is that 330,000 soldeirs have died in war, some just, others not so much

[Contra]

You can't die twice, so why should they care about you after you are dead? Military, its a business anymore.

[El Mudo]

Superintendent receives letter of reprimand, which will be taken out of his file when he retires, which will be July 2 (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/06/11/metzler_one_month_reprimand/index.html).

This guy (Deputy Superintendent), gave millions of dollars to fraudulent contractors
(http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/06/11/thurman_higginbotham_arlington_scandal/index.html)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/06/11/thurman_higginbotham_arlington_scandal/md_horiz.jpg

He also passed on the info of dead soldiers (including social security numbers) to those same fraudulent contractors

No one has confirmed exactly what the Army is investigating. But Higginbotham was in charge of the cemetery's botched attempt to computerize its burial records, which is at the heart of the scandal. Poor record-keeping is blamed for the cemetery's misidentifying or misplacing hundreds of graves, sending burial urns to landfill, and other tragic mishaps. Officials have known about record-keeping problems since at least 2004, and they have spent between $6 million and $15 million to computerize the system. Higginbotham has been in charge of the project for more than six years, but very little progress has been made.

As Salon reported last September, interviews, internal cemetery e-mails and budget documents show that Higginbotham steered millions of dollars to a small cast of contractors operating under a succession of different company names, either though no-bid contracts or methods that tightly limited competition. Internal e-mails show Higginbotham appearing to exert complete control over the awarding of the contracts. The companies, however, produced almost nothing, and the cemetery still relies almost exclusively on pieces of paper to track operations, leading to mistakes like the kind uncovered by Salon.

The Army investigation released this week confirms that Higginbotham acted as a contracting officer and highlights two questionable payments of $200,000 and $800,000 to those contractors who produced little or nothing in return.

The report also amplifies concerns about lax handling of private information on service members and their families, another issue that was the focus of previous Salon articles. Salon reported that Higginbotham last summer mailed to a Florida contractor two computer servers full of personal data -- including Social Security numbers -- of thousands of deceased service members. He ordered them sent despite federal law that bars such unauthorized shipping, and despite the objections of the cemetery's IT manager, who warned of possible privacy law violations. The new Army report says that also last summer, Higginbotham sent a bogus memorandum to Army officials at Fort Belvoir falsely claiming Arlington had adequate protocols to safeguard sensitive private information. The report says Higginbotham, described by title but not name in the report, “knowingly signed a memorandum that contained false information, which demonstrated his failure to adhere to the Army value of exemplifying the highest ethical and professional standards.”

[badmonkey]

I'm just glad that, with President Obama, we're finally moving away from putting the government in charge of more and more things instead of moving rapidly towards it at a frightening pace. Viva El Presidente!

[WRESTLINGFAN]

Sickening!!!

And the rubes expect the gov't to manage the healthcare system effectively


http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Possibly-More-Grave-Errors-at-Arlington--99419009.html

[torker]

I thought it was the eggheads.

[Dudeman]

I thought it was the eggheads.

egghead rubes

[epo]

Sickening!!!

And the rubes expect the gov't to manage the healthcare system effectively


http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Possibly-More-Grave-Errors-at-Arlington--99419009.html

There is no correlation to health care reform....you are obviously mentally unstable.

[WRESTLINGFAN]

There is no correlation to health care reform....you are obviously mentally unstable.

Are you fucking insane? You dont see that something relatively small like this gets fucked up but you put all your blind faith into some 2 trillion dollar fiasco?

[epo]

Are you fucking insane? You dont see that something relatively small like this gets fucked up but you put all your blind faith into some 2 trillion dollar fiasco?

You do realize that the government isn't running health care under the reform bill? Right?

[El Mudo]

Already a thread (http://www.ronfez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=87782&highlight=depressing+story+day)

And Arlington is run by the DoD. I think that, and the Old Soldiers Home are the only ones it runs. The rest are managed pretty competently by either the NPS or the VA.

[WRESTLINGFAN]

You do realize that the government isn't running health care under the reform bill? Right?

An individual mandate, Tax increases fees etc to pay for it so it will be running it

[epo]

An individual mandate, Tax increases fees etc to pay for it so it will be running it

That makes no fucking sense. Why do you fear logic and facts so much?

[Dude!]

quit stealing
my rhetorical questions