The Story
What's it like to visit Arlington National Cemetery in Northern Virginia? Here you can learn about its complicated history and honor those no longer with us.
We started at the visitor center and walked to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was hilly but beautiful. When we got there we saw a wreath-laying ceremony. Everyone in the crowd was silently watching.
From there we walked to Arlington House, the historic Custis family mansion George Washington Parke Custis built. His daughter married Robert E Lee, who resigned from the U.S. Army after the Confederates offered him command. During the Civil War, the Union seized the land to create Arlington National Cemetery and a temporary Freedman's Village for the former enslaved.
We took a look inside the house.
After that, the last stop was John F Kennedy's eternal flame. Mrs. Kennedy originally lit it and it burns from the center of a five-foot circular granite stone.