Arlington Chief Retires Amid History, Controversy

ARLINGTON, Va. (May 31) -- Walking in Arlington National Cemetery's Section 60, the flat field he picked out years ago for what is now "the saddest acre in America," Superintendent John Metzler Jr. is at home.

More than 600 fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried there, including Army Pfc. Sam Williams Huff, whose name reminds Metzler of a famous Washington Redskin linebacker and who was killed at 18 by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005. On the back of her marble headstone is inscribed the name of her mother, Marine Cpl. Margaret Joyce Williams. She died of cancer and a broken heart four years later and is interred with her daughter.

"I hope we're winding this down," Metzler said before his eyes fixed on some sunken graves and a patch of dead grass by a Medal of Honor recipient's headstone -- probably the result of a beer shared by buddies. Climbing into his black Crown Victoria with ANC-1 plates, he gets on the car radio. "Poppa, this is Alpha," he says to a groundskeeper at the other end. "Let's fill those in and get some sod in here before Memorial Day."

Today is Metzler's 20th and final Memorial Day as the caretaker of America's premier shrine to its heroes. After a career managing national cemeteries before taking the job once held by his father here, he will retire July 2. Next year, when he is living with his wife in Pittsburgh near his seven grandchildren, he expects to feel a void.

"I've never had a Memorial Day in my entire life off," he said as he drove past shaded graves. "We are usually at our very best -- all the grass has been mowed, the trees are trimmed, the headstones are clean, the flags are on all the graves, and the cemetery is as good looking, if you will, as it can be."

There have been more noteworthy days for Metzler: the 1994 funeral of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and the burial last summer of Sen. Edward Kennedy in a spot he handpicked. The ceremonies for the victims of the Sept. 11 attack who were buried within sight of the Pentagon. The services for astronauts, Supreme Court justices, medical pioneers and, of course, military heroes. More than 110,000 funerals since 1991.

And then there are the living dignitaries who come in a constant procession to pay homage. On this morning, Metzler escorted the Japanese minister of defense. Earlier this month, he toured Section 60 with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Perhaps his biggest thrill was hosting Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, who visited during a fierce thunder and lightning storm and insisted on holding a metal-tipped umbrella. "That was a little nerve-wracking," he recalled.

Yet none compare to Memorial Day. Metzler has accompanied every president for the ceremonial wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns since Bill Clinton. Today Vice President Joe Biden will attend ceremonies at Arlington while President Barack Obama, who was here last year, participates in observances at a veterans cemetery in Illinois.

"This," Metzler said, "is my favorite time of year."

Born to Care for the Dead

Metzler was born in Brooklyn, but his earliest memories are in the white stucco Cape Cod cottage in Section 1, where his family moved in 1951 when his father, John Metzler, became superintendent. Just 4 years old, he and his three brothers grew up behind tall hedges that hid the gravestones a few yards away. From his bedroom dormer window, though, young Jack looked out on ornate markers the boys used for cover during snowball fights.

When he was 6, he watched the funeral of Gen. Jonathan Wainwright right outside his house. He knew little about the hero of Bataan who was the highest-ranking POW of World War II. But he will never forget how he got to sit on the caisson horse after soldiers offloaded the general's remains.

As he got older, his father taught him to drive on the cemetery's winding back roads. When he wanted to get away from the tourists, he headed to his favorites place: a remote hill in Section 3 where a general tainted by the Massacre at Wounded Knee lies in one of only two mausoleums at Arlington.

"For me, it was normal because that's all I ever knew," he said.

After a stint in Vietnam as an Army crew chief on Huey helicopters, Metzler considered going into aviation mechanics but instead joined the family business. He apprenticed at veterans cemeteries in Arkansas and South Dakota and was in charge of 40 cemeteries in the Northeast when he was offered the job at Arlington. Six months before moving back home, his father, who had retired in 1972, died and was buried in Section 7-A, not far from boxer Joe Louis.

The senior Metzler had presided over the burial of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 as his teenage son watched from the press pit.

Before JFK's funeral, the first to be televised live, Arlington was just another sleepy national cemetery with 3,000 burials and 1 million visitors a year. The following year, requests for interments more than doubled and 7 million people visited. Eligibility rules were soon tightened to prevent running out of space in the cemetery established in 1864 in Gen. Robert E. Lee's backyard as payback for his allegiance to the Confederacy.

Somewhere in Arlington's 624 acres is the current superintendent's future final resting place. He claims no preference for location. "Anywhere in the cemetery and I'll be happy," said Metzler, whose tie clip is a tiny shovel given to him by his father.

'Lost Accountability'

At 62 and maxed out at 41 years and 11 months on his government pension, Metzler insists he's been thinking about retirement for a while. But for a man who professes to have no hobbies and plans to do consulting on "high-profile funerals," it isn't unreasonable to wonder whether he is getting out before his time.

A Salon.com series last year uncovered misplaced graves, unidentified bodies and shoddy record keeping at Arlington. The Army, which operates the cemetery, is conducting an investigation into what Army Secretary John McHugh called "lost accountability" at the iconic burial ground. The website probe focused mostly on Metzler's subordinates, although he came in for criticism as well.

"About a fourth is somewhat factual, and the rest isn't even close," the superintendent said. "Nobody here is doing anything malicious. ... Sure, mistakes get made. ... Does anyone run a perfect organization?"

Metzler has been interviewed "numerous times" by investigators but said McHugh "never said a word" to him about stepping aside.

"As the boss, you always feel responsibility," Metzler said. "Obviously, I'm embarrassed over it, but I look at all the good things I have done and feel a lot more proud about that and all the thousands of people I have helped along the way."

The Salon expose isn't the first rough moment of Metzler's tenure:

Expansion. When Metzler championed expanding the cemetery to avoid running out of burial space by 2025, environmentalists and historic preservationists howled. He kept pushing, though, to raze the nearby Navy Annex to eventually add more than 70 acres that will allow burials for another 50 years.

Waivers. When U.S. ambassador to Switzerland Larry Lawrence, a major contributor to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, died in 1996, his widow asked that he be buried in Arlington based on his claim of being wounded in combat on a Merchant Marine vessel in World War II. When the Army failed to turn up his records, it granted a waiver. Only later did it surface that the story was fake, leading to congressional hearings and a government probe. Lawrence's remains were eventually disinterred.

"Before that, we took people's word" about military service, said Metzler, who emerged from the scandal mostly unscathed. "It taught us we couldn't take anything for granted."

Tomb of the Unknowns. Soon after Lawrence was dug up, stories surfaced that the identity of the Vietnam service member in the Tomb of the Unknowns might be known. When Pentagon officials decided to unseal the tomb to conduct DNA tests, Metzler called in the firm that originally built the historic sarcophagus.

"We didn't know if we could actually do it. It was not built to be reopened," he said. "There was a lot of stress with everyone to do the job quickly, to do the job without damaging anything and obviously to get the remains out intact. We had some real unknowns. We just didn't know how we were going to proceed with this, and all this happened in a matter of 12 hours."

Workers toiled overnight to remove the remains -- without incident -- in time for the exhumation ceremony on May 14, 1998. They were later identified as those of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie. The Pentagon announced that the Vietnam crypt would remain empty.

A Four-Star Salute

Metzler checks his watch as he strides briskly to the steps of the cemetery's chapel. "Is Gen. Dunwoody happy? Good," he asks his funeral manager. The military's first four-star female general is inside consoling the widow of a predecessor, Gen. Henry Miley Jr. He died more than three months earlier but the family, like many others who must travel far to Arlington, waited until spring to bury him.

Miley's is one of 32 funerals this day. Despite the attention paid to combat casualties, most burials at Arlington in recent years are of the World War II generation. All veterans are given military funerals, and as a four-star general, Miley is getting full honors: four escort platoons of 120 soldiers, a 26-piece band, a riderless horse, a 17-gun cannon salute, three rifle volleys and a lone bugler playing Taps.

After visiting Miley's family and chatting amiably with the sergeant of the honor guard, Metzler is off to check the grave site. He chose it for the general because of its view of the U.S. Capitol between the trees.

Soon, the funeral procession is heard in the distance. The band plays the Army song beneath a gray, overcast sky. Every move is choreographed, and Metzler stands by to ensure there are no missteps. Standing amid the mourners, he leans over to whisper to Dunwoody. A moment later, she then steps forward to present the flag to the widow.

When it is over, Metzler quietly slips away. He has done his duty.