NEAL CONAN, host:
Every Veterans Day, national attention focuses on a magnificent sight: Just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. every November the 11th, the president comes to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Hes just one of nearly four million people who visit the revered cemetery every year to pay homage to loved ones and ancestors, to honor the military service of strangers, to watch the ceremony of the changing of the guard or visit the eternal flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy.
And about 6,000 times each year, families gather for a new edition to the more than 300,000 graves at Arlington. If youve been there, tell us your Arlington story. Our phone number is 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our Web site. Thats at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
With us here in Studio 3A is Robert M. Poole, the author of On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery, which is just out. Nice to have you with us today.
Mr. ROBERT M. POOLE (Author, On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery,): Nice to be here.
CONAN: And this is the story, yes, of a piece of real estate, and its got quite a history to it. But its really the story of so many people that you tell in this book. For example, the property originally belonged to the Lee family. We all know that. Thats the Custis-Lee Mansion there on the top of the hill, or it used to be called that.
Mr. POOLE: Yeah.
CONAN: In any case, theres a slave, a Lee family slave, and you tell his story in the - in this book.
Mr. POOLE: Yes. That slave is James Parks. He was born at Arlington. He was owned by the Lee family, the family of Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis Lee. And he was born in 1843. So, he grew up there. He saw the Civil War unfold. He saw Robert E. Lee make, what was for Lee, a very painful decision about whether to go North or go South. He saw the Union Army crossing the river to take possession of Arlington in 1861.
He saw war brake out all around the Washington area. You could hear the cannon fire at Arlington from the First Battle of Manassas. It was that close, war all around. He lived through the war. He saw freedmen, other former slaves who came to Washington in 1863, after the Emancipation Proclamation. So this one guy saw all of these things. He dug the first graves at Arlington when it became a cemetery. And in a tribute to his service in 1929, when he died as a respected old fellow, he was buried at Arlington. Special honors were given to him by his friends in the Quartermaster Corps in the U.S. Army.
CONAN: We mentioned Robert E. Lee, of course, the great Confederate general. Theres another general a little bit less well known, whos crucial to the story of Arlington: Montgomery Meigs.
Mr. POOLE: Yes. Montgomery Meigs is not that well known, but many people credit the Union victory - at least the timing of the Union victory - to the diligence of Montgomery Meigs. He was quartermaster general of the Union Army. He knew Robert E. Lee. They served together in the Union Army. As soon as Lee went South, Meigs decided that he was a traitor. And theres, you know, there are some people who would agree with that assessment. He didnt have any use for Lee after that.
His duty as quartermaster general was to bury any soldiers who died during the Civil War in the Washington area. So, as the war went on and the graves built up in Washington, we needed a new place to - just to bury these poor soldiers who were dying in the Civil War. Meigs looked across the river. He saw Lee's plantation and decided, well, let's start burying soldiers there. So thus began, in the spring of 1864, Arlington National Cemetery.
CONAN: And those first graves, right next to the house.
Mr. POOLE: Yes. In that first year, he put graves right next to the house. And he wanted to - as he as his term was to encircle the mansion to prevent the Lees from coming back to Arlington after the war.
CONAN: And eventually, he succeeded.
Mr. POOLE: He did succeed. In a way, he succeeded. But in a way, the Lees had the last word because their eldest son, Custis Lee, went to Congress and asked for the property back in the 1870s. Congress said, no thanks. You can't have it back. It's a cemetery. We want to keep it a cemetery. So then Custis Lee went to court and he sued the government to have Arlington given back to the family. Lo and behold, in 1882, the case got to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lees, so - and the basis of the ruling was that the property had been seized illegally by the Union Army during the Civil War.
So the Lees got the property back. By this time, there were 16,000 graves on the property. So Custis Lee agreed to sell the Arlington Estate to the Federal Government for $150,000 in 1883. Ironically, on one hand, Custis Lee was signing for his family. On the other hand, the secretary of war at the time was a gentleman named Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln. So you have the sons of Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln agreeing on something, which I believe is a beginning of the healing of the wounds from the Civil War.
CONAN: The stories of so many - among the most poignant is the story of General Pershing, of course, the - best remembered as the general who led the American Expeditionary Force to fight in Europe in the First World War, but also remembered as Black Jack Pershing, the dashing cavalry commander.
Mr. POOLE: Yes. Black Jack because he, in the 19th century, led a regiment of black cavalry men.
CONAN: Buffalo soldiers.
Mr. POOLE: Buffalo soldiers. And the term Black Jack was derogatory. But Pershing was proud of his men, and he took a unit a cavalry unit to the next war after the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and they performed with distinction in Cuba.
CONAN: He chose not to have one of the more prominent sites at Arlington, but rather to be buried with his men.
Mr. POOLE: Yes. One of the things you see at Arlington, it's always consistently, right down the line - is a reflection of our history. So you see things reflected there, like segregation, you see that at Arlington.
CONAN: The black soldiers were buried down at the bottom and the
Mr. POOLE: Exactly.
CONAN: the white soldiers up on the hill.
Mr. POOLE: Exactly. Which was the practice in the Army until 1945. So you see that reflected at Arlington. Where Pershing is concerned, before his time, the officers had their own section at Arlington. They were segregated by rank. And they had grand graves which were reflections of the Victorian era, so that if you had the money and wanted to build a big grave, no problem. The bigger the better.
Pershing really changed that. When he died in 1948, he knew he was going to die. He had a long time to plan his funeral, his own funeral at Arlington. He requested a standard issue plain marble grave, and he wanted to be buried in a section where enlisted men were buried so that - he reportedly said - so that I can stand up with my men when the last bugle is sounded.
CONAN: We want to hear your Arlington story. 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. And let's start with Phil, Phil with us from Cincinnati.
PHIL (Caller): (unintelligible) Thank you, Neal. I want to tell the story I was recently there in 2007 for the funeral of my great uncle, who was shot down in 1943 flying a C-47 transport over what they called The Hump, which was the Himalayan Mountains from India to China, during World War II. And it wasn't until - you know, they never found his plane. He went down, he just never landed in China. And the Chinese government reported that they had found the wreckage of American aircraft in 2005. It took them two years in order to get a search team. Went up there, found the bodies. DNA testing recovered that it was his body.
And I actually never knew the man. I'm only 22. Like I said, this is my great uncle. And they were able to bring the body back, very emotional service, even so many years later. Military absolutely put on a great service. They had a flyover by a military transport, and it was just it was a beautiful day, and it was a great opportunity to put somebody to rest who had, you know, served and fought and died for our country.
CONAN: Phil, thank you very much. Appreciate it. That's a wonderful story. And I'm glad it all worked out for you.
PHIL: Absolutely. Thank you, Neal.
CONAN: Bye-bye. And he tells a story that, again, is another of our national stories in Arlington. There are so many thousands of bodies that were never recovered from the Civil War, many thousands
Mr. POOLE: Yes.
CONAN: never recovered from World War I or World War II. But that number declined with every American conflict.
Mr. POOLE: Every conflict. In the Civil War, there was a tremendous number of unknowns. More than 42 percent of the people who died on both sides in the Civil War went to their graves without names. With each war, that number has come down to in World War II in Korea, it got down to about three percent. Because we I think because the embarrassment and the disgrace in the Civil War was - the numbers were so high, we really began working hard at making sure we got in and identified our fallen fighters in the wars after that, so that by Vietnam, the number is down to zero. There is no unknown from the Vietnam War. That tomb is empty now.
CONAN: Our guest is Robert Poole. His new book is "On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery."
Let's see if we can get Shane on the line, Shane with us from Battle Creek in Michigan.
SHANE (Caller): Hello. How are you?
CONAN: Very well. Thanks.
SHANE: Just to share my story real quick, in 2004, on May 24th, we were ambushed in Iraq and I loss my eye and sustained several injuries. And I was medevaced first to Germany and then to Walter Reed, where during the holiday ceremonies, my family loaded me up and helped me get around the cemetery because I was still injured, and I got to see, you know, what it was that I was injured for and kind of - it helped me understand that there was, you know, people before me that were going through the exact same thing, that had went through worse, families that have lost their sons and daughters.
And it just - it actually helped me deal with it and not be, you know, feel too down about everything, and to kind of given me a bigger, broader picture of -throughout history of what everyone else has to do. And it made me proud of, you know, giving up my eye and doing that for the country.
CONAN: That's a profound thing to say, Shane. It's no sacrifice anybody should be required to make. And it is - it's an honor, the rest of us, that you were willing to make it.
SHANE: I'm very proud, and I would do it all over again. I wouldn't (unintelligible) anything.
CONAN: Thank you very much, Shane. Appreciate the phone call. Happy Veterans Day.
SHANE: Yes, thank you.
CONAN: We're talking with Robert Poole about "On Hallowed Ground," his new book. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
Six thousand estimated new graves in Arlington every year. It will be mid-century before the room runs out?
Mr. POOLE: Yes. The estimate is that we can go until 2060 with the space we have available now and the space the cemetery will take - will acquire in the coming years. They'll take on another 70 acres around Arlington, part of it from Fort Myer, part of it from the old Navy Annex, part of it from National Park Service. And thatll give us space, they think, for another few years.
CONAN: This is where so many people would like to be buried. Nevertheless, not everyone who would like to be buried there is buried there. The qualifications are - well, there's a long list of them.
Mr. POOLE: Yes, there is. And it's different for - there are two sort of categories. If you are honorably discharged from the service, you qualify for inurnment at Arlington. And that means you go to a columbarium which has been built, which - at which you receive an honors ceremony with a firing party, a folded flag.
The requirements are higher for in-ground burial. You have to - either you die on active duty in a war or you qualify for, you know, retirement, youre a career military person, or you have earned bronze star or the equivalent or higher.
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
Mr. POOLE: Or you have a spouse or, you know, dependent buried there.
CONAN: There's always loopholes.
Mr. POOLE: Yeah.
CONAN: We mentioned there are always exemptions - or exceptions. We mentioned Black Jack Pershing. There's not a Black Jack buried at Arlington.
Mr. POOLE: Yes. The horse that was made famous during the Kennedy funeral in 1963, Black Jack, the rider-less horse who followed along behind Kennedy's caisson. And everybody saw him. He was acting up. He went on to serve at other funerals, and he was honored at - with a burial at Fort Myer, right next to Arlington, part of Arlington.
CONAN: Hmm. Robert Poole, thank you so much for your time today.
Mr. POOLE: Thank you.
CONAN: Robert Poole's new book is called "On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery." He was kind enough to join us here in Studio 3A.
(Soundbite of music)
CONAN: Today, President Obama visited Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day.
President BARACK OBAMA: We call this a holiday, but for many veterans, it's another day of memories that drive them to live their lives each day as best as they possibly can.
For our troops, it is another day in harm's way. For their families, it is another day to feel the absence of a loved one and the concern for their safety. For our wounded warriors, it is another day of slow and arduous recovery. And in this national cemetery, it is another day when grief remains fresh.
So while it is important and proper that we mark this day, it is far more important we spend all our days determined to keep the promises that we've made to all who answer this countrys call.
CONAN: Earlier, the president laid wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and stood with his hand over his heart as the bugler played Taps.
(Soundbite of song, Taps)
Unidentified Man: Honor guards, point gun. Huh!
(Soundbite of gunfire)
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
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