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Personal Narrative: A Day At Arlington National Cemetery

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I went to Washington, DC this summer for vacation, there were so many sites and monuments I wanted to see, yet the one thing I thought I wasn't as interested in seeing turned out to be my favorite, Arlington National Cemetery.

It was told to me that over four million visitors pay their respects to the fallen now buried at Arlington National Cemetery each year. There are still over 20 funerals a day conducted at the cemetery. As you walk around in the respectful quiet and beauty of Arlington National Cemetery, you can hear the 21 gun salutes just about every 25 minutes for our fallen soldiers being laid to rest among their fellow soldiers as you pay your respects.

You must consider that every government-issue headstone is a monument to this nation; Arlington National Cemetery has points of special tributes, from the Eternal Flame of President Kennedy's grave and the mast of the USS Maine to the Lockerbie, Scotland victims.

Yet there are some that are so small they speak volumes. The grave of Attorney General and former Congressman, Bobby Kennedy, is marked with a simple wooden cross. That's the way he wanted it. He did not want to take the glory and respect away from any fallen soldier. I was in sixth grade when Bobby Kennedy …show more content…

It turns out there was no great study commissioned by the government to find that beautiful parcel of property. The creation of Arlington National Cemetery was driven by the human emotions of spit and revenge. At the end of the Civil War, the Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton declared the home, known as the Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion), and 200 acres of ground immediately surrounding it officially as a military cemetery. This was June 15, 1864. The property was just across the Potomac River, In Arlington, VA, from Washington D.C. and consisted of 1,120

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