Arlington Superintendent Jack Metzler, Jr. to Retire, Amid Army Probe of Missing Black Civil War Soldiers' Graves

Arlington National Cemetery Superintendent Jack Metzler Jr., to retire July 2, amid investigation into misplaced graves of black civil war soldiers.

Jack Metzler Jr., Arlington National Cemetery's superintendent will retire July 2, ending a tenure dotted with historical achievements and marred with controversy. A Salon.com series uncovered misplaced graves, unidentified bodies and messy record-keeping at Arlington, under Metzler's watch. The Army, which operates this historic cemetery, has launched an investigation into what has been called "lost accountability." Though mainly Metzler's subordinates were the subject of the Salon series, he did not escape sharp criticism.  To that he said, "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?" It should also be noted that he has been interviewed on many occasions by interviewers, but Army Secretary John McHugh never called for his resignation.

Here's an interesting take on his tenure by AOL News, which shows that Salon wasn't the first media outlet to scrutinize his actions:

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 exhumationceremony 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.

It's time for a changing of the guard and Jack Metzler's replacement must correct the myriad of problems created under his watch. The disappearance of the graves of black Civil War soldiers is a slap to the men and the sacrifices they made for this country.