Arlington grave site scandal growing

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Missouri senator whose subcommittee is investigating potential contracting fraud at Arlington National Cemetery said Monday the number of mislabeled graves there could be in the thousands.

An internal Army investigation found at least 211 discrepancies between burial maps and grave sites at Arlington. The review found lax management of the cemetery and a reliance on paper records to manage the burial sites.

At a news conference Monday, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said the number of burial site errors could be much higher because the Army report was limited to a small section of the cemetery.

“At the very essence here you have waste,” she said. “There may be fraud – we don’t know at this point.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ subcommittee on contracting oversight, chaired by McCaskill, will hold a hearing in Washington on Thursday on its cemetery investigation.

The list of invited witnesses includes former cemetery superintendent John Metzler and deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham. Both retired earlier this month after they were forced to resign, and McCaskill said she is not certain if either will show up to the hearing. She declined to say whether the subcommittee would subpoena either man.

“We are doing everything we can to get both (of the officials) to the hearing,” she said.