Tomb Of The Unknown Essay

One of the most well known area visited of Arlington National Cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknowns. Many of the soldiers buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns fought in World War One. Additionally, millions of soldiers had died during the first World War and many American soldiers were brought home from the European battlefields and many others’ were never identified. On October 21, 1921, four coffins were dug up from the four American military cemeteries, which were located in France. Corporal Edward Younger was honorably chosen to pick out of these four coffins to choose one to be sent back to America. Furthermore, Corporal Younger chose a coffin, placed a bunch of white roses on a coffin and this became America’s unknown. In A Grateful
A voice seemed to say, ‘This is one of your pals’” (Ashabranner 53). After this unknown was chosen, the unknown was brought back to the United States on the ship named “Olympia”. Also, on November 11, 1921, this unknown was taken to Arlington National Cemetery for the burial. In the year of 1932, a huge, white, marble sarcophagus was added for the Tomb of the Unknown from World War One. On the Tomb of the Unknown, the inscription engraved is, “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God” (Ashabranner 58). As an important landmark, the Tomb of the Unknown is guarded with perfection and the guards who are guarding have a strict routine that they have to go through at all times. Long ago, the Tomb of the Unknowns was guarded by the cemetery military personnel through the day and through the night, a civilian watchman guarded the tomb at night. Nonetheless, the lack of a professional guard at every hour, vandals began to enter the cemetery to destroy these important landmarks. In 1937, a twenty-four hour military guard was provided to guard this particular tomb. About a decade later, the Third Infantry received the highest responsibility to guard the Tomb of the Unknown. The Tomb of the unknown is now guarded at all times,