Wreaths Across America: Saturday, Dec. 14

ANC will again be one of more than 4,600 locations to participate in WAA. Click "read more" for important information. 

Published on: Monday, December 9, 2024 read more ...

AUTHORS

TIMOTHY JAMES LAWSON

Tomb Guard Earns Badge After His Final Watch

By Kevin M. Hymel on 3/27/2024

Conducting a final walk at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a high honor for a Tomb Guard of the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), as is earning the Tomb Guard Identification Badge. However, to do both on the same day is a rare event. That’s just what happened to Staff Sgt. Thomas Tavenner on March 11, 2024.

Coast Guard Officer Wears Her Inspiration

By Kevin M. Hymel on 3/19/2024

When Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Alexandra Miller came to Arlington National Cemetery on March 8, 2024, she brought with her 104 students from the United States Senate Youth Program to see the changing of the guard and to lay a wreath. But she brought something just for herself, not typically seen by others.

Senate Youth Program Student Leaders from Across the Country Visit the Nation's Hallowed Grounds

By Kevin M. Hymel on 3/19/2024

More than 100 high school students from the U.S. Senate Youth Program came to Arlington National Cemetery on March 8, 2024, to honor the nation’s fallen and lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The program is a week-long scholarship and educational experience sponsored by the U.S. Senate for outstanding high school students and provides an in-depth view of the Senate and the federal government. The program selects two students from each state, the District of Columbia and the Department of Defense Education Activity. Seventeen military officers escorted the students to the cemetery. 

Family Honors Ten Year Anniversary of Couple Buried at ANC

By Kevin M. Hymel on 3/15/2024

On a cold, rainy day on March 9, 2024, twenty people gathered to remember the tenth anniversary of the burial of U.S. Army Spc5 Wyley Wright Jr. and his wife, Ouida Fay Wright, at Arlington National Cemetery.

Their burial together in Section 59 on March 9, 2014, brought together two people who had been separated in death for more than 50 years. Spc5 Wright, a crew chief with the 114th Aviation Company, lost his life on March 9, 1965, when the UH-1 Huey helicopter he was in crashed in a swamp along the Mekong Delta near the South Vietnamese town of Binh Long. His remains were brought back to the United States and buried in a segregated cemetery in Jackson, Florida. Ouida died the same day as her husband in 1970 and was also buried in a segregated cemetery in Columbus, Georgia.

Caring for a Winter Wonderland at Arlington National Cemetery

By on 2/20/2024

Among snow-dusted headstones and luscious evergreen trees, the Arlington National Cemetery horticulture team and grounds crews have been hard at work, keeping the cemetery looking its best and brightest—even in the blustery winter months.

“There’s a lot of beauty here in the winter months, with or without the snow,” said Kelly Wilson, ANC’s horticulturalist, who oversees landscaping and gardening.

Gen. George C. Marshall Meets His Valentine, Katherine Brown

By Kevin M. Hymel on 2/14/2024

This Valentine’s Day, we remember the love between Gen. George C. Marshall and his second wife, Katherine Tupper Brown. They first met in the summer of 1929. Both were widowers who never intended to remarry.

Marshall, a colonel at Fort Benning, Georgia, (now Fort Moore), accepted an invitation to a dinner nearby Columbus. Brown came to the dinner reluctantly from Baltimore, Maryland, with her seventeen-year-old daughter Molly. Marshall was standing by the fireplace when Brown entered the house. “My first impression,” she later recalled, “was of a tall, slender man with sandy hair and deep-set eyes.” He immediately impressed her by refusing a cocktail. They spent the entire dinner bantering back and forth as Brown found herself attracted to the officer and his “way of looking right through you.

Army General who was Once a Montford Point Marine Laid to Rest at ANC

By Kevin M. Hymel on 2/9/2024

Decades before Albert Bryant retired from the U.S. Army as a brigadier general, he broke the U.S. Marine Corps color barrier during World War II. The Marine Corps barred Black Americans from serving prior to the war, but in 1942 it opened its ranks to Black volunteers. The first Blacks to serve in the Corps were trained at Montford Point, North Carolina, becoming known as Montford Point Marines. They eventually fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In many ways, they were the Tuskegee Airmen of the Pacific.

ANC Employees Lay Wreaths at Headstones

By Kevin M. Hymel on 12/18/2023

On Dec. 15, 2023, the day before the public comes to Arlington National Cemetery to lay wreaths on headstones as part of Wreaths Across America, ANC employees spread out in Section 37 to lay wreaths themselves. This practice is a holiday tradition to give those who work at the cemetery a chance to honor those laid to rest.

Tomb Guards Lay Wreaths at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

By Kevin M. Hymel on 12/18/2023

At exactly 10:15 a.m. on December 16, 2023, four Tomb Guards from the U.S. Army’s 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), each holding a holiday wreath, marched out to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Sunlight gleaned off their visors as a hushed crowd watched. They stopped, faced the tomb, and saluted.

A Fallen Hero from the Korean War, Home at Last

By Kevin M. Hymel on 12/16/2023

U.S. Army Cpl. Gordon D. McCarthy lived a hard life before he was killed in combat on the frozen hills of North Korea on Dec. 2, 1950. According to his niece, Marilyn Stanton, McCarthy’s mother died six months after he was born. His grandparents, uncles and aunts raised him while his father worked. When his father remarried, McCarthy gained three more brothers, but when he was only 15 years old, his father died in a lumber accident