Panel: Arlington cemetery should tighten grave rules

[unhappycamper]

http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/panel-arlington-cemetery-should-tighten-grave-rules

Panel: Arlington cemetery should tighten grave rules
By Patricia Sullivan
The Washington Post
© November 21, 2013

WASHINGTON

Arlington National Cemetery's relaxed policy on personal mementos left at the graves of those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be stopped by the end of 2014, an advisory commission recommended Tuesday to the secretary of the Army.

The committee, led by Max Cleland, a disabled Vietnam veteran and former U.S. senator, said it was fitting to end the exception to the cemetery-wide policy — which allows only flowers and small photographs at grave markers — as troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Families of service members buried in the cemetery's Section 60 objected this fall when grounds crews began removing laminated photos, colored stones and other personal items that had been left at grave sites. Someone had epoxied a ceramic commemorative coin to the back of a headstone, and other grave sites were adorned with collections of personally significant items, including football helmets, letters, liquor bottles and painted stones.

A truce, negotiated in October, allowed families with loved ones in Section 60, where the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, to leave a small photo and a handmade memento on the graves through April, when the cemetery resumes its normal grass-cutting routine.