J.J. Green, wtop.com
ARLINGTON, Va. – Tim Langowski was working for Lane Construction at Arlington National Cemetery clearing away brush and debris with a bulldozer when he found something odd.
“I was working at the Cemetery in late spring, early summer of 2005. I was clearing some paths so we could do our survey work on the job and stuff, and I was coming around one of the small roads when I happened upon what I thought originally was a ball off a flag pole.”
“I got off the [bulldozer] and I went and picked it up, and it actually had a cap on one side, and I turned it over, and on the other side the cap was not on it.”
“It” was not what he thought it was. Langowski, 50, from Frederick, Md., was caught off guard and deeply affected by what he saw when he peered inside the ball.
“Inside that ball were actually some ashes,” he says. “It was a sad thing to see.”
In addition to finding the open urn and ashes in a waste pile at Arlington Cemetery, Langowski could see inside.
“There was a baggie that had a small letter and also a picture of a girl that was a cheerleader for a hockey team,” Langowski says. “She was wearing a blue and white uniform.”
He described in great detail what he saw while answering questions and pointing out the locations where he found the items. He was struck by the condition of the photograph and letter.
“The picture wasn’t weathered at all,” he says. “It had seen no water, no moisture, no nothing. The picture was just as clear as the day whoever took the picture.
“I never opened the baggie, I figured that was sacred. I never touched it other than to see what it was. The print on it was in ink and none of that had run or smeared or anything, so the urn couldn’t have been there very long.”
Two Army inspector general investigations into procedures and allegations of improprieties took place between August 2009 and January 2010.
Among the findings was a section on improper handling of cremated remains.
The report states:
Evidence reflected that there were no documented procedures regarding the preparation of grave sites containing interred cremated remains. Evidence identified at least four occasions when urns of remains were found in the spoils area. These cremated remains were presumably removed from grave sites by mistake and deposited in the spoils area during the preparation of grave sites for burial of other family members. One set of remains was re-buried as “unknown” because there were no identifying marks on the urn.
Langowski questioned whether the remains he found were dug up by mistake or simply discarded.
“Maybe [the urns] weren’t dug up,” he says. “The first one I found was just as clean as could be. I mean, clean and shiny as could be, as you could polish brass.”
Langowski’s encounters with disinterred remains were not limited to one occasion. Two weeks after the first incident, Langowski was working when another discovery was made.
“I was working on the other side of our office, which was near a waste pile and we were stripping top soil and there was a [backhoe] operator who grabbed my attention and said that he had found something, and there it was.”
“There was another urn that he had dug up. So, at that time I said ‘Give it to me,’ so I could turn it in to the proper authorities.”
When the problems at the cemetery were publicized in the report, Langowski began to wonder.
“I often think about these urns, especially the one that was open and I saw the little girl,” he says. “What did the cemetery do with these urns once they were turned in?”
Langowski says he handed the urns over to his Lane Construction project manager at the time.
After originally offering to discuss what happened to the urns, a spokesman from Lane Construction corporate communications told WTOP, “We can’t help you on this.”
Part III: Arlington Cemetery Management is summoned to explain what happened.
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(Copyright 2010 by WTOP. All rights reserved.)
