REAL ID Requirements

Beginning May 7, 2025, all individuals over the age of 18 who are authorized to drive onto Arlington National Cemetery should be prepared to present a REAL ID at the security checkpoint.

Published on: Tuesday, April 29, 2025 read more ...

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Michigan Football Team Visits ANC

By on 5/5/2023

Four Wolverine football players from the University of Michigan placed their right hands over their hearts as a U.S. Army bugler sounded Taps. They had just laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, just one of the highlights of the team’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery on May 2, 2023.

Civil War Veteran Buried at ANC

By Kevin M. Hymel on 4/28/2023

 

U.S. (Union) Army Capt. Isaac Hart probably never imagined that, while leading his company of Black cavalrymen during the American Civil War, his remains would be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in 2023. But that’s exactly what happened on April 27 in Section 76.

Kevin M. Hymel
Contract Historian
Kevin M. Hymel

ANC Executive Director Gives Impromptu Tour to South Korean President

By Kevin M. Hymel on 4/27/2023

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol changed his mind. After laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) on April 25, 2023, he was supposed to depart the cemetery. But as he passed through the Memorial Amphitheater, he stopped to look at the plaque that his country gave to the United States, on exhibit in the Amphitheater’s Display Room (which features numerous plaques given by foreign leaders who have visited ANC). He then began to peruse the exhibit on the history of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. 
 

Expert Helps ANC Identify Artifact from the USS Maine

By Kevin M. Hymel on 4/14/2023

 

In February of 2023, Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) curator Rod Gainer needed to verify a relic from the wreck of the USS Maine. New Jersey’s Pascack Historical Society had offered to donate the artifact to ANC with limited provenance. So Gainer contacted Steve Whitaker, who has studied the famous ship and its place in history for the last eight years.

Kevin M. Hymel
Contract Historian
Kevin M. Hymel

Intellectual, Suffragist and Pathbreaking Federal Employee: Helen Hamilton Gardener

 

Courageous, risk-taking women have long shaped the ongoing struggle for gender equality in the United States. While Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) is most widely known as the resting place of many male military heroes, it also includes the graves of numerous prominent, pioneering women who were heroes in their own right. One such woman was Helen Hamilton Gardener (Section 3).

An intellectual, activist and champion of women’s rights, Helen Hamilton Gardner used her life experiences as inspiration for the social change she strongly advocated. Born Mary “Alice” Chenoweth, she sought independence early on by training at the Cincinnati Normal School to become a schoolteacher. At the time, teaching was one of the few acceptable paid professions for young women to pursue. She graduated in 1873 and took a position as a teacher in Sandusky, Ohio, where she quickly rose to become the principal of Sandusky’s new teacher training school.

Arlington National Cemetery Honors National Siblings Day

Arlington National Cemetery is not only home to brothers and sisters-in-arms, but brothers and sisters, literally. For National Siblings Day, learn about some of the brothers who served together and are forever honored at ANC.

Remembering the Sacred 20 at Arlington National Cemetery

America’s military women have long forged new paths and opened opportunities for American women to contribute to the betterment of our nation. One such group of trailblazing women, known as the “Sacred 20,” became the first women to serve in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps, established in 1908. Three superintendents of the Navy Nurse Corps, and at least four other members of the Sacred 20, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC).

First Hispanic Female Tomb Sentinel Makes Her Final Walk

By Kevin M. Hymel on 3/9/2023

On the afternoon of March 9, 2023, the U.S. Army’s first Hispanic female Tomb Sentinel guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery for the last time. Sgt. Kamille Torres Zapata walked the 21 steps back and forth with acute precision until being relieved of duty during the changing of the guard ceremony. It was her 746th walk.

Kevin M. Hymel
Contract Historian
Kevin M. Hymel

Large Crowd Attends WWII Veteran’s Funeral Service

By Kevin M. Hymel on 2/24/2023

More than 300 people, most of them strangers to each other, showed up at Arlington National Cemetery on February 23, 2023, to ensure that U.S. Navy Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class (GM3) Herman Schmidt would not be buried alone.

Kevin M. Hymel
Contract Historian
Kevin M. Hymel

U.S. Coast Guard Honors Those Lost Aboard the USS Serpens

By Kevin M. Hymel on 1/30/2023

On the night of Jan. 29, 1945, the United States Coast Guard suffered its worst tragedy when the USS Serpens, a cargo ship crewed primarily by Coast Guard members, exploded off the coast of Guadalcanal, in the British Solomon Islands, carrying ammunition and other cargo bound for U.S. bases in the Pacific. While the crew was loading depth charges into the holds, a massive explosion suddenly occurred. More than 250 men lost their lives: nearly 200 Coast Guard members, 57 members of an Army stevedore unit and a U.S. Public Health Service surgeon. Only two of those aboard survived. The cause of the explosion was never definitively determined.  

Kevin M. Hymel
Contract Historian
Kevin M. Hymel