MAY 30, 2013 |
'Here Rests in Honored Glory...'
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Many Americans, particularly those too young to have a recollection of, say, the Vietnam War, are not aware that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetary actually contains the remains of three unidentified soldiers. In fact, the true name of the memorial is the Tomb of the Unknowns.
On this day in 1958, two caskets—one containing the remains of an unidentified casualty of World War II; the other containing the remains of an unknown Korean War soldier—were carried by cassion to Arlington.President Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded each soldier the Medal of Honor before they were interred in separate crypts alongside the remains of their unknown brother from World War I, who had been interred on Nov. 11, 1921.
The crypt that once contained the remains of a soldier from the Vietnam War now lies empty. In 1998, 14 years after he had been interred at Arlington, it was announced that the remains were identified as Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, who in 1972 had been shot down near An Loc, Vietnam. He was exhumed and reinterred in his hometown of St. Louis, Mo.
Being selected to stride before the Tomb of the Unknowns is one of the military's highest honors. |
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