The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Most Americans are familiar with the famous resting place at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The land itself is rich with historical significance, as it was once owned by the family of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and was confiscated during the Civil War.
However, many are unaware that the great white marble monument is not the first tomb of unknowns at this sacred burial ground.
The Civil War left behind many unidentified dead, leading to the creation of the first Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in 1866. Here’s that lesser-known story.
The Unidentified Dead, DNA & Ambiguous Family Loss
Throughout human history, disease, natural disasters, war, and famine have caused immense grief and loss. In the aftermath of destruction, typically there would be several unidentified bodies, in some cases hundreds, to bury in unmarked graves, potter’s fields, or mass burial pits. Today, archeological mysteries thousands of years old are being solved using DNA, sorting individual family relationships buried in mass graves of anonymous victims over five thousand years old, as reported by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A New York Times article (DNA Can Identify Soldiers, June 11, 2022) describes how DNA technology has been correcting old mistakes in identifying more modern unknown warriors. The article notes the power of DNA to sort out identities comes at a price: the same technology that helps us to name the nameless also exposed harsher realities— the military’s (and science’s) repeated failures in identifying their own dead. Nations around the world creatively transformed this past problem of the anonymous dead into a virtue by designing memorials to honor unidentified soldiers lost in battle.
The First Tomb of the Unknowns
The first Tomb of the Unknowns in the U.S. was erected on the grounds of a plantation owned by families connected to George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Originally, Confederate bones were not intended to be mixed with the unknown Union soldiers. But there was a problem— over 2,000 full and partial remains of both Confederate and Union unknowns collected from early battles could not be accurately distinguished. Early uniforms had not yet been standardized, and later regulation uniforms were sometimes in short supply—soldiers often wore personal clothes. The more affluent could afford regulation uniforms and were more likely to be identified, removed, and embalmed if found early enough. Bones remaining on the field were likely the less affluent.
The solution? Remains were interred together in an unintended poetic act of democratic reconciliation (or reluctant acceptance of technological limits)— that the men were not merely Virginians or Pennsylvanians, but more certainly all Americans. This was also politically expedient since Lincoln implored the country to bind up the nation’s wounds and to care for widows and orphans, just before his assassination. That first massive cenotaph in Arlington democratized grief and loss, granting nondenominational dignity to the unidentifiable and less affluent Civil War families, and helping them to navigate the mourning process. The second and more well-known Tomb was constructed on the same grounds after WWI as a way to publicly honor the selfless acts of unidentified soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice, and to ease the anguish of families for their fallen sons and brothers in Europe. The Tomb, if only indirectly, illustrated the basic need for families to heal their psychological wounds, regardless of politics or social status. Soldiers from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam eras were added later.
Modern DNA Technology & Military Identification
Today, DNA technology assures no soldier ever goes unidentified again. The Department of Defense has required DNA samples from all military personnel since 1992. However, the Vietnam soldier interred in 1984 was subsequently identified using DNA and was later disinterred. Omitted in that Times article was a deliberate withholding of evidence (like a military ID found with remains) for the identity of the Vietnam “unknown” precisely because the remains were among a group of other unknowns in contention at the time for the Tomb. The soldier’s distraught family fought back and confronted the bureaucracy with documents clarifying the soldier’s likely identity. The military’s later use of DNA officially confirmed Michael Blassie’s identity in 1998. Relieved, the family ordered a tombstone with his full name inscribed and he was re-interred at his home in St. Louis. This was not just about a single family. The story made national headlines as veterans and their families attended the re-internment to honor their comrades who fought in Vietnam and never made it home.
DNA technology played a significant role in helping to reveal mistakes and to heal invisible wounds from that war, the ambiguous loss for thousands of families, in a tangible way. Aside from the 9/11 memorials in New York City and Shanksville Pennsylvania, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is one of the few national non-denominational and inclusive spaces for families of all backgrounds to acknowledge unresolved grief and loss, for those missing and never found. Today, these tombs for unknowns are found all over the world.
Personal Reflections & DNA Testing
Just as the nation sought reconciliation after the Civil War through the first Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, I yearned to reconcile the fragmented pieces of my own family narrative through DNA testing.
I had visited Arlington a few times in childhood. Each time there were ephemeral thoughts and feelings, a double-edged psychological sword of knowing and not knowing— incomplete answers. Uncertainty is part of its mystique of course. This unique amalgam of emotions mirrored my own uncertainties when I tested the waters of genetic genealogy, like millions of others in recent years, (roughly 40 million and counting). I took my DNA test in 2019 seeking to explore my own family mysteries after the death of my brother and decades of therapy.
Untangling a disembodied past via DNA gives answers, and can raise serious questions or surprises — ambiguous losses that we didn’t know we had. Even one of the most powerful militaries in the world had avoided dealing with messy mass gravesites. The general public is no different in their reluctance. The military historically knew in several cases there were likely mixed bones making definitive identification of individuals nearly impossible. I could say the same for the genetic bones in my family. They were similarly mixed and unknown, confusing boxes of ambiguity— and honestly, how many of us would willingly wipe away the cobwebs and open those crypts? Who in their right mind jumps down that dark rabbit hole of humanity?
Therapeutic Implications & Broader Significance
Today, we are resolving issues of identity, grief, and loss using genetic genealogy. You may be one of the millions who have taken a DNA test to find a perplexing surprise. These tests, along with digitized historical records, can be helpful therapeutic tools to explore generational family patterns and to identify and explore core themes in psychotherapy sessions. Art, reading, writing, music, animals, toys, sports, games, and movies—nearly anything can be used as a therapeutic tool, if used mindfully, to learn about our deeper selves, to explore and peel away our inner layers like the pages of a book. Family trees have been used for more than half a century in family counseling and therapy. DNA and digitized records offer scientifically reliable and verifiable answers to significant questions of identity, not only of the ancient dead but the living who may have experienced misattributed parentage or the culmination of repeated generational loss, unresolved grief, and trauma. Records can reveal or clarify historic patterns of disruption: injury, illness, hospitalizations, miscarriages/deaths, adoptions, countless address changes, separation, divorce, job loss, and other critical changes in the family system. Both clients and practitioners have often found themselves discouraged, lost, or languishing in treatment for years. With broader systemic approaches, combined with the tools of genetic genealogy and digitized historical records, counselors and therapists have promising new pathways to address issues of identity, grief, and loss.
While DNA testing offers a path to individual stories, Memorial Day reminds us of the collective narrative of service and sacrifice. We honor them all, the known and the unknown, for their unwavering dedication to a nation they loved.
@Sheryl Pickering Thanks for the restack!🙏