Arlington National Cemetery Investigation

[HMC-FMF-PJ]

Arlington National Cemetery Investigation
http://www.salon.com/news/arlington_...ion/index.html


http://www.salon.com/news/arlington_...ional_cemetery


More misplaced remains at Arlington National Cemetery
What happened to Master Sgt. Marion Grabe, says a source, is a clue "that there may be thousands of these problems"
By Mark Benjamin, Salon, Sunday, Nov 1, 2009 16:28 PST



Arlington unveils a new unknown soldier
The first headstone stamped "Unknown" since 1984 is the result not of war's chaos, but of human error
By Mark Benjamin, Salon, Wednesday, Oct 7, 2009 00:07 PDT

For the first time in a generation, Arlington National Cemetery has marked the burial of an unknown on its storied grounds. Only this time, 25 years since the last interment at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the identity of the body remains a mystery not because the ravages of war made identification impossible, but because in a bureaucratic error the cemetery lost the paperwork showing the identity of the remains.

[HMC-FMF-PJ]

Millions in contracts, no work completed
An Arlington National Cemetery official keeps sending work to the same small group of associates, with few results
By Mark Benjamin, Salon

A top official at Arlington National Cemetery steered millions of dollars to a handful of contractors operating a series of different companies over the past several years. When the contractors would leave one company and start another, the official would hire them again, yet the work they were hired to do has never been completed. The firms have ostensibly worked since 2003 to computerize burial records at the cemetery, but to date, despite receiving as much as $5.6 million, they have produced almost nothing in return.




Contractor in Arlington fraud scandal arrested
Arlington National Cemetery contractor Bobbie Garrett was arrested on sex charges as he stepped off a plane in Ohio
By Mark Benjamin, Salon

A contractor at the center of a fraud scandal at Arlington National Cemetery has been arrested on multiple charges of child abuse and sex offenses.




Why did Arlington National Cemetery rehire Bobbie Garrett?
Garrett was investigated for fraud while working as a contractor for the cemetery. Why did he get his job back?
By Mark Benjamin

Arlington National Cemetery has rehired a private contractor who was involved in a recent wire fraud scandal at the cemetery. Bobbie Garrett was employed by a computer company working on a multimillion-dollar project at the cemetery when he and cemetery deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham were caught hacking into the computer files of a former cemetery employee. After Garrett left the company and the Washington area, eluding Army investigators, he started a new computer firm in Florida -- and the cemetery granted this new firm a six-figure contract.