Living close to Arlington has allowed us to visit these hallowed grounds numerous times. We want to share the best advice we have for visiting Arlington National Cemetery…whether for the first time or the 5th.
Intro: 0:00
Getting to Arlington: 2:05
Main entrance/Visitor’s Center: 4:10
Taking the tram or trolley: 4:33
Arlington history: 8:13
The Arlington app: 10:33
Grave organization and kid recommendations: 14:15
Driving in Arlington: 18:30
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: 19:54
Arlington House: 23:47
Women’s Memorial: 25:01
Spouses buried in Arlington: 26:24
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Transcript
Ep 43 Arlington Tips and Tricks
Ep 43 Arlington Tips and Tricks
[00:00:00] Scott: In house. This was Robert e Lee’s Plantation. This was his home before the Civil War. He married into George Washington’s family. Yeah. And so this was George Washington’s land. Um, so prime, beautiful location overlooking our nation’s capital.
[00:00:27] Welcome to Talk with History. I’m your host Scott here with my wife and historian Jen. Hello. On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world Travels YouTube channel journey in examine. History through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers and the history lovers out there.
[00:00:44] Now we don’t have any guests tonight, so before we get to the main topic, I want to ask for our listeners. If you’re listening on the podcast, leave us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It really, really helps out. Um, or just spread the word about the podcast We’re shooting for trying to beat the history channel
[00:01:02] Think we’re a little ways off, so we’ve, we’ve got some ways to go, but this marathon, not a sprint.
[00:01:09] In 1864, the beginnings of America’s most hallowed cemetery were born on the family grounds of the likes of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Yes, those two giants of history are distantly related, but this is not a discussion about the founding of America or the Civil War. Today. We are giving you the lessons we have learned in at least half a dozen visits to Arlington National Cemetery.
[00:01:36] Now, I can honestly say that we’ve probably been. Almost every corner of Arlington, and it never gets old walking amongst those who sacrifice their lives through, through service to our country. And if you ever plan on visiting Arlington, hang with us to the end because you’ll be happy to hear these tips and tricks for your visit that you, some of these you can’t find online.
[00:01:58] So Jen, let’s talk a little bit about kind of. Get into Arlington, what’s kind of the first thing that, that people need to think about? Um, you need to think about navigating in Washington, DC that’s for sure. Driving through DC is, I’m sorry. It’s just awful. My husband has a adversity to turn circles in Washington, DC and seems to miss the, uh, the right off ramp every time.
[00:02:23] So it’s a. Turn circle getting into Arlington. Yeah. And it’s across from the Lincoln Memorial. If you go another direction, you can head towards up, um, the Roosevelt Park Island or Iw Gemma. Um, but you gotta make sure you’re hitting the right off ramp for Arlington National Cemetery. Yeah. And actually getting the Arlington’s.
[00:02:45] Probably one of the easier spots to get to, because it’s not really in the heart of dc It’s not, it’s, it’s kind of on the, on the outskirts. Um, but you get there, you get through the, the big turn, turn circle there, and there’s, there’s clear signs. So you can, you can get in there, you can get parking’s pretty straightforward, pretty straightforward.
[00:02:58] It’s pretty much, you’re gonna drive straight ahead. You’re gonna see a big monument, but parking’s gonna be directly off to the left. Um, . It’s technically in Virginia, right? So people like to say DC Arlington National Cemetery, but I’ve been corrected on that a couple times online. Yeah. It’s technically Virginia.
[00:03:16] And then when you park off to the left, you have to pay for parking now. And we show that in the video. So you’d be aware, I think it’s $3 an hour, $12 for the day. Yeah. When we. We had gone just after Covid started opening up a little bit and the parking was free for a little, for, for a little while, but they started kind of charging Yes.
[00:03:35] Uh, for parking. And it’s not bad it’s for, but that’s all they charge for three bucks an hour. If you Uber, they’ll let you out. Right. Right before the parking garage and you won’t pay for anything. Yep. So yeah, you can catch a catch cab or, or an Uber right up there. Yeah. Um, and again, there’s, there’s plenty of parking, so I don’t think it’s something that you really have to worry about.
[00:03:51] No. But we recommend paying at the kiosk. Before because it’s just quicker to get out when you leave. Yeah, and the couple times we’ve been there, we’ve seen people struggling as they’ve been like trying to pay and they get out and the machine stops working. So yes, get your ticket, do the tour, come back, pay at the kiosk first, and then drive out.
[00:04:09] Then you can just scan your ticket and get out. And then getting into Arlington, you’re going to go through a main building that is a little bit of the history, and you’ll see they have some little displays there, which are nice. You’ll walk through a. Detector and it is free. Go to Arlington. It’s free to walk to Arlington.
[00:04:27] It’s free to attend the two, the changing of the guard. Um, but the trams cost money. Yeah. And we recommend your very first time there taking the tram.
[00:04:40] Yeah. And, and just so you know too, for those of you. listening. If you watch our video that’s coming out tomorrow mm-hmm. that, I mean, that tomorrow’s video is kind of all these tips and tricks shows you. And so we actually show you kind of like where you can buy the tram tickets. Mm-hmm. and actually Arlington’s relatively, um, accessible by wheelchair.
[00:05:00] So it’s pretty accessible by, by wheelchair. Yeah. And even the trams are accessible over white wheelchair and they’re very accommodating too to any kind of handicaps. So there’s two things you can do. You can take the tram. The tram is kinda like a guided. Tour. They stop at four locations. They’ll stop at, uh, John f Kennedy’s grave.
[00:05:18] They’ll stop at the tomb of the unknown. They stop, I think at Pershing’s grave. Yep. And then Arlington house. And then Arlington house. Or you can see the trolleys. Now. The trolleys are separate. If you wanna pay for a trolley tour, they’re an hour long, and you can get a group together and you can pay for the trolley tour now.
[00:05:37] Veterans get a discount on tickets, and it’s free if you’re in uniform. And then it’s almost like half price for veterans and their families. But that’s just for the tram. It’s not for the tour. So if you’re gonna do one of those trolley tours and the trolley tour will be much more in depth, I’m sure they’ll take you where you wanna go.
[00:05:55] You could probably make it more specific to maybe something you wanna see, because there are different subject areas in Arlington. The tram is just the basic route that will stop at those locations. Now, the tram, you can hop on and off. It’s not as if you have to stay with the group and the time you left with, if you wanna go to the changing of the guard, then walk around and then hit the, hit another tram at a different location.
[00:06:23] Yeah, and, and, and the neat thing about. The, the tram as well is one, obviously you’ve got someone sitting on the tram and they’ll actually talk about graves as they drive by them. Yeah. So even though they don’t stop at all of the graves that you may want to jump off at, um, and they’re not gonna stop just because you kind of raise your hand and say you wanna stop.
[00:06:40] They’ve got their kind of four designated stops, but they’ll talk about Graves as as they drive by them. So we’ve been at Arlington before, you know, filming near a grave site. Yeah. Near someone that was relatively. You know, it might have been Lee Marvin or the Tuskegee Airman. Tuskegee Airman or something like that.
[00:06:56] And the tram will drive by and they’ll talk about like, oh, over there you see where that person’s standing, you know, Audi, Audi Murphy is right over there. And actually, so that’s one of the things you can do that’s nice to do is if you jump off at one of these stops, and let’s say you just saw the changing of the guard at two Minute Unknown Soldier Ay Murphy is, he’s right across the street.
[00:07:14] Yeah. So there’s, there’s oth, you can hit some of those other. Famous spots near where those, where those stops are now you’re. be off like way in the corners. Mm-hmm. , like the tram’s not gonna take you out to like where Gunny IIE is. Yeah. Because he’s way off in like a newer corner. Be prepared if you’re gonna see him, the, the tram doesn’t go out there, and you might be able to get the trolley to take you out there, but the tram does not go anywhere near there.
[00:07:39] Yeah. But they, they do. We’ve been there enough and I’ve had, we’ve had the trolley or the tram. Drive by us enough times. I always hear them talking about, like as they go, right? Mm-hmm. . So they, these are pretty good tour guides who, who know what they’re talking about. Oh yeah. And they’re gonna hit the ones you’ll wanna see Medgar Evers, they’re gonna hit the two presidents, Barry, their Taft and Kennedy.
[00:07:57] I think Joe Lewis do they, they, they talk about Joe Lewis. They talk about the Tuskegee Airmen. Yeah. They’ll talk about the shuttle, the space shuttle, uh, astronauts that are there. Yep. Yep. Um, so that, it’s really good too, in case you’re like, oh, I wanna go back. I wanna see that if your first time to kind of, to get an idea of location.
[00:08:16] It also give you a lay of the land. Arlington is very big. How many acres is it? Oh, it’s, it’s a couple hundred acres. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a lot. It’s, it’s big and, and. We go into the history of it. If ever watch, uh, one of our work with history videos about Arlington House, this was Robert e Lee’s Plantation.
[00:08:33] Yeah. This was his home before the Civil War. He married into George Washington’s family. Yeah. And so this was George Washington’s land. Um, So prime beautiful location overlooking our nation’s capital because George Washington, one of the founding fathers could be like, Hey, I like this land it, it has a great view of the Potomac and a great view over here of the Capitol.
[00:08:55] And so, If you’re go to Arlington house, it is a beautiful view of Washington dc Well, when Robert E. Lee leaves to join the Civil War, uh, his wife also leaves in fleas. And I, I talk about this in other videos and you can watch this, this animosity between people who served together because Robert E. Lee went to West Point with people who were on the Union Army and.
[00:09:19] Mad at each other because now you’re basically taking arms against your fellow countrymen. And so one of the Quartermasters Mead, who was really good friends with, um, Lee and was very upset, decided to start bearing civil war dead at his plantation. And that’s how Arlington starts. And if you wanna see those original graves, they’re still there.
[00:09:46] And we talk about where sections those are in and the locations. Um, but that’s how Arlington starts. And we go into. , just the history of it. So you’re gonna have people there from the Civil War on now there are older graves there, and the oldest grave is not military related at all. Mm-hmm. , it’s a woman who was related to the Lee family, to the the Washington family.
[00:10:11] And because she was buried on the plantation home. Um, but we talk about. Who’s buried there today, and you’re gonna find all different types of people who have served there are even confederates buried. Yeah. International, national Cemetery whole, the small section for them. Mm-hmm. . Yes. And, and you know, kind of segueing from, from that, The Arlington National Cemetery website has tons of great lists.
[00:10:40] It, it’s the, it’s a phenomenal website, right? So a lot of what we’re we’re telling you, you probably could find on there. Mm-hmm. , I think the videos are videos nice because it’ll show you where you can go and what you can do. And it kind of give you those examples that they won’t show you on the website.
[00:10:55] But, um, one of the things that you can do is if you want to go see all the astronauts, Right at Arlington National Cemetery, there’s a spot on the website. You have that. Now when you get there, it would be difficult because you’d have to write down the sections and the grave site numbers and all this stuff.
[00:11:11] Yeah. So one of the things to do, and we, we show this multiple times in the video, is to download the Arlington National Cemetery app. So there’s a free app and it actually gives you directions. Mm-hmm. to these famous grave sites. So in the app, it has a lot of the same information from the website. Mm-hmm.
[00:11:28] And then if you’re looking for more. Specific information, like you can’t look up Marin O’Hara No. By her by. Actor’s name? No, you have to look her up by her married name. Yes. And so you have to look her up by last name of Blair. Yeah. So you look that up and you’d be able to find where her grave site is, which is actually, it’s not far from the jfk.
[00:11:48] Yeah, it’s um, it’s it’s close grave site. Yeah. It’s close. It’s actually very, very close. Very close. And we do a good job as well. Location is kind of difficult, um, to defer to in, to infer on the, um, app. Especially hillsides. So it looks pretty flat when you’re looking at it on the app. You’re like, oh, that’s not bad.
[00:12:11] But anything, and I re I recommend this. Anything by two of the unknown is, is pretty steep. Yeah. And when we find constant Bennett, like she’s an actress. We, we did a whole video on, um, actress and actress says, uh, Arlington. Oh yeah, she’s steep. Like Yeah, she’s like high. I thought it was higher than Arlington house.
[00:12:29] Yeah. But, um, so if you wanna get your steps into Arlington, you definitely. It can, we’ve, we’ve put on a lot of miles there. Yeah. We’ve broken sweats there. Oh yeah. Um, it can be difficult, so you gotta be in pretty good shape, but you’re not technically allowed to exercise at Arlington National Cemetery.
[00:12:45] You’re not allowed to jog, but, uh, you can walk fast. . Yeah. And just sometimes just walking around, especially in the summertime there, it’s, it’s really warm. Mm-hmm. . Now so that the app’s super handy and it will actually give you directions, right? It will, it’ll help, it’ll give you shortest directions. So kind of the shortest path you can take.
[00:13:04] It’ll give you directions where if you can’t do stairs mm-hmm. , it’ll say, okay, avoid stairs. Mm-hmm. . So that might help if you’re with someone in a wheelchair or if you don’t have, you know, good knees or something like that. Yes. Um, but, uh, so the, the app is fantastic. I, I highly recommend. Maybe more so if you go like a second time, you can do it for the first time.
[00:13:24] Mm-hmm. the first time. It can be a lot. So I, I recommend in the, even in the video, and I would recommend anybody going the first time is, is doing the tram tour. That’s probably the best bang for your buck. The first time. That’s, yeah, your first time. I would definitely do that too. Get a lay of the land. Uh, one thing the app doesn’t do that we do a pretty good job of, it’s not gonna show you if the tombstone looks different, so there are some tombstone.
[00:13:47] A lot of them are uniform, the white tombstone, but there are some that are different. And Marino Harris is one of them. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Joe Lewis. Um, Taft, jfk. Yeah. You know, Robert, um, Lincoln, they look different. And so th that’s not just deciphered on the app. So when you’re walking around looking, you might be like, where is the grave?
[00:14:10] And so we can tell you this, this one looks like a uniform tombstone. This one looks like a different one. Yeah. Now most of the graves, like I think one section we’re in actually where Co Colin Powell is. Mm. Section 60. Section 60. So that’s one of the newer sections. And that one’s pretty easy to navigate because all the graves are sequentially numbered.
[00:14:29] Mm-hmm. . So if you have a section number and you have a grave site, you can infer pretty, pretty quickly. Yes. You know where, where it’s gonna be. And that’s actually a tip that we give in the video, which I don’t think they would say this on the website, is if you have kids with you and you’re looking for a specific site, you can go to this section and then give your, give your kids the.
[00:14:50] And have em because, and just have ’em take, have ’em. Have ’em go, right? Yes. Cuz that always symmetrical. It’s not always easy and sometimes it resets. You’ll go all the way and then it resets all. Yeah. So it’ll save you a lot of running around and looking and be like, okay kids, right, we’re in this section, find this gravesite number and they’ll just kind of take off.
[00:15:09] Yes. And, and we talk about that We didn’t. We’ve been there enough times and our kids know they’ve been around enough cemeteries, um, to know not to carry on too much. Yeah. They have a sign that says silence and a respect. Yeah, I would say no. Listening to loud music. No talking loud, but, um, no. No. Like, Carrying on.
[00:15:30] But I think kids and laughter and, you know, walking through the cemetery, you will see families there. Yeah. And so you, I think you do still wanna have this presence of your family and, you know, and remembering someone in, in a positive sense. But there is no like, live music or anything like that. Yeah. And that’s one of the things that the, the few times that, that we’ve been there, um, Most of the time, most folks aren’t like us looking around trying to find, you know, a specific grave site to, to talk about the history, to talk about the person.
[00:16:05] Um, usually they’re there either to, to visit, you know, an old family member, someone they may have served with, someone they knew yes or to in the unknown, most people, or a lot of the two in the unknown, honestly, changing. But, uh, so you even in Section 60, I think we chatted very briefly with, with a family.
[00:16:22] Yeah. That they were, they were looking for someone, they were looking for someone. Um, and we kind of helped them. We helped them look, I think too, and people are usually buried in sequence of funeral and death. Okay. That’s usually how it happens. It’s, you don’t really have a place saved for you or anything like that, unless, Buried with a spouse or a parent, right?
[00:16:43] Or a child. Yep. So when people are buried, it’s usually in a sequence of. When you’ve been approved to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, so that’s kind of like the order it’s going in as they bring in people to be funerals. They do it in the sequential order. When you first walk into Arlington and make the left right past the trams, you’ll see a black sign and it’ll have numbers we show in the video.
[00:17:07] And it’ll have last names on it. And those are the funerals for the day. And they’ll have parking lots right beside that with the names on that. And usually that’s where the family will go and drive and wait for their funeral to start. Because almost every funeral at Arlington National Cemetery is with the horse and the wagon.
[00:17:26] They do the, you know, it’s all, you know, a full, yeah. And, and that’s, and it’s just a full ceremony. Full ceremony for the person. And so, It’s an active cemetery. If it really calls for it, you might even see a flyover. So you have to be prepared like they’re being, they’re doing burials every day. Arlington National Cemetery is open 365 days a year.
[00:17:50] Um, the trams go 360. three days a year. They’re only off for two days when they lay the wreaths. Oh, wow. And that’s it. Other than that, they’re open. When it comes to leaving stuff on graves, you’ll see people leave flowers. We’ve left flags. Mm-hmm. , you’ll see people who sometimes put up pictures. We’ve left rocks and coins.
[00:18:12] Coins have significance. They definitely mean something. Um, but for the most part, Arlington doesn’t sanction leaving anything except for the wreaths. and the flags on Veterans Day. Yeah. But so most things will probably be cleaned off within a week. So just be aware of that as well. Yeah, and that’s actually what you said earlier is, is another good point is you can’t, you know, the parking’s easy to get to, but 99% of the public can’t drive into Arlington.
[00:18:42] The only folks who are gonna be authorized or allowed to, to even drive in Arlington. It’s not like, You know, they, they actually have people stopping, you know, folks from, from driving into Arlington National Cemetery is, you know, for a funeral. For a funeral. You know, or if they have like a specific pass because they have a family member buried there and they’re disabled.
[00:19:02] And they’re disabled. Mm-hmm. , right? So if they’re handicapped and they can’t walk all the way there, um, To see their son, daughter, spouse. So, so you will see cars driving through Arlington National Cemetery on occasion. Mm-hmm. , but there’s not a lot, which is nice. Mm-hmm. , if you want to go and walk around because it’s pretty safe mm-hmm.
[00:19:20] right. I mean, there’s, it, it’s wide enough for two cars to pass each other. Yes. But everybody’s just kind of walking, uh, in the middle of, of the street. So, and that’s another nice thing if you wanna take your family ever. You can take your kids and you can feel pretty safe with them walking around. Yes.
[00:19:35] Yes. It’s that, that is a great thing about it. And, um, it, it is a good place for you to be with your family and if you have some history lessons that you wanna show. Yep. Because there is a lot of history there. We talked, we’ve seen, we’ve seen like probably high school classes. Mm-hmm. like field trips out there.
[00:19:50] We’ve seen that. Yes. You know, a gaggle of 30. 14 year olds. Exactly.
[00:19:58] The changing of the guard will, we’ve, we’ve had this discussion on another podcast. Yeah. Cuz we argued about how often they change. Right. And we were both right. And it’s pretty much every time, sometimes it’s 30 minutes, sometimes an hour, sometimes it’s two hours. And that could. all in the same day. . Yeah.
[00:20:17] So during the summer months, it’s every 30 minutes because it’s hot. It’s just hot. And then during the winter, I think it’s every hour. Yeah. And then after. Arlington closes, it’s every two hours. So it’s manned 24 hours a day, but after Arlington is closed, you know they are out there for two hours at, at a time.
[00:20:38] Now people, that’s what people wanna see. That does have a lot of, um, ceremony attached to it. Silence. Respect. You can’t get close. You can’t pass the chain. The guard will, uh, address you if you do. Yeah. He’ll address you if you’re loud and he’ll address you if you try to cross the chain. So even children.
[00:21:00] So you have to make sure you’re con and most people will stand during the changing. Um, so I actually, I read a very interesting thing about the army. that does the, that’s in charge of the Yeah. The changing of the guard. Um, so the, the ribbon or the metal that they get mm-hmm. for being a part of that unit is the second least awarded medal in the entire army.
[00:21:24] Wow. Because it’s so difficult and they screen so highly. For, for members to go be a part of this Army unit. It, I mean, it, it is no joke. It’s no, you can’t drink. These guys are doing even off duty. Yeah. You can’t drink at all. You’re a guard of the tomb of the unknown. You are dry. Yep. For your whole tour.
[00:21:44] Yeah. , and I’m sure leave is probably limited. Yeah. It’s gotta be. Um, I think you probably get a haircut like once a week, once every three days. Yeah. Th there’s vi there’s videos online that, that kind of show what these guys go through. I mean, it takes like six to nine months just to train in order to be allowed to be one of the soldiers out there.
[00:22:05] It’s crazy. It’s, it’s pretty wild. Um, and it’s, and it really is. There’s a lot of power to, to watch in seventies. Mm-hmm. , these changing of the guards, um, you know, for, for the first time. Oh yeah. It’s so, um, it’s so special. Yeah. And honoring to be there. I mean, this is, this is America’s, you know, guarding of our.
[00:22:25] Are soldiers that have died now. We have soldiers there represented from World War I and World War ii. I think the Vietnam veteran was identified and Okay, so was the Korean veteran. It it, that’s just the way we honor the people who have fought for our country. I have never seen uniforms more squared away.
[00:22:43] Oh yeah. And hair. Yeah. Regs. . Yeah. More squared away. I mean, they, they go through a full-blown uniform inspection mm-hmm. not only before they go out kind of to take over mm-hmm. . But that’s essentially part of their ceremony is, is being inspected by the other person. Yes. Um, it’s, it’s pretty cool. So, um, well without rambling on, about 2 million soldier too much.
[00:23:05] Those are the kind of the couple things. That’s why the trams stop at those couple spots. Mm-hmm. , right? Jfk, toma, the unknown Arlington house, they’re all not too far from each other, but they’re on this big hill. Yes. So, again, be prepared. Most people will go to JFK and be like, oh, I’ll, I’ll walk to Toma.
[00:23:20] The unknown. It’s right there. It’s almost straight a hill. So it’s a hike bear even going from JFK up to Arlington house. Right. It’s just up the hill. But you gotta walk around a bunch of graves and then go. Like, probably like a hundred stairs. And these are not like normal stairs. These are like big double step stairs.
[00:23:39] Mm-hmm. , you like step, step up, you know, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s a lot of walking, which, which I really enjoy because it, it wears the kids out for sure. And Arlington House has great history. We have a whole video from there. Robert E. Lee was married there. Yep. That’s the home where he left before the Civil War says the home, his wife, um, basically ran away from.
[00:23:58] So it has a lot of history at that home as well. Um, the person who laid out the city of DC put. DuPont, what’s the name of the petite? Yep. He’s buried up there. Yeah, right at Arlington house. So he has a very unique tomb as well. Um, it’s just a really cool thing to see, so I definitely recommend going up there.
[00:24:19] It wasn’t always open. It just opened again and it’s free. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And actually again, if you go on the Arlington National, Arlington National Cemetery website, they, there’s a section for Arlington House, right? Mm-hmm. , they, they’re all the popular things. And you can see a picture from 1864 with the soldiers sitting out in front of Arlington house, and it looks exactly the same.
[00:24:41] Yeah. It’s got those big columns. Mm-hmm. . So they sh it’s really neat because you can see the old picture, obviously black and white with these, you know, civil War era soldiers. Sitting out front, just kind of lounging around, like, you know, they’re not looking at the camera. No. Um, and then today’s Arlington house.
[00:24:59] Mm-hmm. , it’s, it’s pretty cool. It’s very neat. There’s also the women’s museum there, so, That big memorial you see driving into Arlington, that’s the women in the military memorial. That’s what you see driving in. It has the fountain, it’s in front and off to the side is an actual museum that you can walk through.
[00:25:21] And so that is open as well. And that’ll have a gift shop in there. And they have. The history of women in the military, they have some really great displays, a lot of artifacts, and they tell a really great story of women in the military. Plus, there’s graves you can visit. of certain women who have served that are buried in Arlington.
[00:25:41] And we have a whole video dedicated to that if you’re interested in, in seeing that. Yeah. And so Tommy in the chat just brought up a great point. He said that the tomb badge, which is that badge I was talking about, mm-hmm. , it’s the only military award that can be taken away. for dishonoring the badge through actions after leaving the military.
[00:26:00] Oh. And, and I’m not surprised based on everything that we’ve heard about just being a part of that unit mm-hmm. , I mean, that’s probably the highest part you can set in all, in many military units out there. Yes. So, um, just as far as character and, and you know, Yeah, you, you have to, you’re representing that unit.
[00:26:15] You have to want that duty. Yeah. You’re, you’re like, it’s not something you’d like, oh darn. It’s like you want it, I think it’s competitive to get it. Oh yeah. It’s like you want that duty Last, but certainly not least, uh, one of the things that we kind of discovered that I don’t see a lot out there, um, and we talk about it in the video, is, um, spouses that are married that are, um, buried together.
[00:26:36] So one of the things we show, and we talked about it on so many other videos, but. , a lot of the husbands and wives are that are buried together. The husband is, or the person who served is typically on the front. Mm-hmm. . And then their spouse is, is actually on the back. Yes. So if you’re walking around at the different sections and you see the front where the kind of the more ceremonial stuff.
[00:26:57] Mm-hmm. , you know, maybe some of their, you know, medals that they earned or something like that. Um, , then the spouse is on the back. And so that’s what you’re seeing on the back Yes. Is, is the spouse and like when he or she was mm-hmm. was buried with him and we kind of explained that. Um, in the Priscilla Lane video cuz Priscilla’s another famous actress who’s buried at Arlington, but she’s on the back of her husband’s stone.
[00:27:21] Now it does not mean the spouse is buried behind the stone. They’re still buried side by side, but they’re just represented on the back part of the stone. Now you’re gonna see certain graves too that just say, uh, a chi, the child of private so-and-so, or the, the, the, the spouse of so-and-so. Eligibility to be buried in Arlington has changed throughout the years.
[00:27:45] Uh, of course during the Civil War it was pretty and pretty much after it was, it was a needed se burial ground for people who have served in the military. And there was, the eligibility was just that you had served as Arlington has become. more crowded space has gotten more precious and preserved.
[00:28:04] Eligibility has changed, so you won’t see as many children buried by themselves without a parent or someone else there. Um, now it’s still active duty. It’s still active duty, um, who died? During service veterans? Yep. Who retire, who retire? Um, you, I could be buried there as a veteran, but not in the ground.
[00:28:29] A lot of the niches, the, the column, the bariums, um, which we go to in one of our videos as well, that’s eligible for veterans, which is mostly, um, ashes. But, uh, The, the, it’s changing now. Arlington is kind of spreading out. We’re getting more land, but the eligibility keeps getting updated. So when you see things like that and you’re like, well, I thought this, I thought that it’s, it’s changed throughout the year, so just be aware of that.
[00:28:55] Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, again, it’s, this is kind of just like a. You know, I had actually put out a couple polls mm-hmm. on the YouTube channel and I said, Hey, what, what do you guys wanna see more of? Are you guys interested in behind the scenes type videos? Are you interested in kind of tips and tricks and kind of what it’s like there?
[00:29:13] And, and the o the. There’s a decent amount of responses for, for how young our channel is. And they were, and folks were kinda overwhelmingly saying like, yes, you know, I, I’d love kind of tips and tricks on how to visit some of these more popular places and some behind the scenes scenes videos. So, um, hopefully this is a video that you guys are interested in.
[00:29:30] If you’re listening to the podcast, you can go check it out. Um, and then if you’re watching the livestream, you can, you can check it out when it comes out tomorrow. So, yes. And if you have any questions for us, please let us know. Probably have done it or seen it at Arlington. Yeah. There are cool things to see.
[00:29:45] Like the, the mass of the main is there? Yeah. There are other, the, there’s a lot of different statues and, um, things that kind of commemorate certain people. Yeah. Like the Tuskegee airmen Yeah. Or the um, the astronauts. Yeah. But if you have any questions for us, please let us know. It’s a, it is to us, America’s most hollowed ground.
[00:30:06] We really. love visiting there and honoring everybody who has served and is buried there. We feel like visiting them and honoring them and showing them to viewers is, is, is just. Giving them some recognition for their lives. Yeah. So we’re, we’re really honored to do that. Absolutely. And if you still have your visit to Arlington National Cemetery planned, we hope that these tips and tricks help you on your journey.
[00:30:33] It’s amazing to walk through the grave sites of presidents, Supreme Court justices, astronauts, and Civil war soldiers. The nation’s heroes are truly represented in an amazing fashion, and that you should see at least once. Thank you for listening to the Talk with History podcast, and please reach out to us at our website, talk with history.com.
[00:30:52] But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this podcast, please share this with them, especially if you think that today’s topic would enters a friend, shoot a text and tell ’em to look up the Talk With History podcast because we rely on you, our community to grow, and we appreciate you all every day.
[00:31:06] We’ll talk to you next time. Thank you.