The U.S. Army today said it will do whatever it takes to rectify the mishandling of burials sites at the Arlington National Cemetery and will cross-check 330,000 graves at the cemetery.

The Army Secretary John McHugh told the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing this morning that what happened in the Arlington National Cemetery with the mishandling of the America's dead heroes is unacceptable. He said the Inspector General of the Army identified 211 graves with discrepancy problems in his report, released in early June.. So far the Army has corrected 26 discrepancies.

According to Inspector General's report some graves at the Arlington National Cemetery were mismarked. There was at least one double burial in a single gravel. There were cremated ashes dumped on a dirt heap. Even this was not the end. On June 18, Fox News reported that discarded headstones were used in 1990 to line a creek bed at the same cemetery.

McHugh said it was an apparent cemetery policy to dispose of headstones in such a way at the time. He called that method of disposing headstones as "rather distasteful."

The main issue is the mismarked graves, which is a result of poor record keeping. Years ago all 130 national cemeteries move on to digital record keeping. All of them are administered by the Department of Veteran's Affair. The case is different with the Arlington Natioal Cemetery. Instead of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs the Army runs it.

Fixing these problems is a huge and massive effort. It will take years and years, but McHugh said the Army is up for the task of cross-checking 330,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

Written by Armen Hareyan