John C. Metzler, Jr.

John C. Metzler Jr. (born September 12, 1947) is an American civil servant who was Superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, from 1991 to 2010. He achieved notoriety in the press at the end of his tenure due to the Arlington National Cemetery mismanagement controversy.

Early life John C. Metzler Jr. was born in 1947 to John C. Metzler Sr. and his wife Bernadette. He was one of four sons.

Metzler first moved to Arlington National Cemetery in 1951 at the age of four when his father was named the cemetery's Superintendent. His father, John C. Metzler Sr., presided over the burial of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, an event the younger Metzler remembers watching while standing next to his father. Metzler left the Army after three years. "We have over 14,000 trees at Arlington Cemetery, and each year we're able to attend to just a few of them", Metzler said. Metzler said the cemetery had done the best it could with limited resources, and had placed its focus on the ever-increasing number of burials and inurnments which occurred there each week. Metzler said it was his policy to "expand land a little ahead of when we need it so the land can be developed and settled after the construction." of unused space on the cemetery grounds were turned into burial space in 2006 and 2007 to allow an additional 26,000 graves and 5,000 inurnments.

In 2007, Metzler implemented the Millennium Project, a $35 million, 100-year-long expansion plan which transferred of woodland from the National Park Service-controlled Arlington House and from adjacent Fort Myer to the cemetery. Another of cemetery property currently occupied by maintenance buildings would also be converted to burial space.

Burial waiver dispute In 1997 and 1998, Metzler also handled several scandals involving waivers which would permit ineligible individuals to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Concerned that the cemetery would not have enough space given the large numbers of military personnel who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, Congress passed legislation in 1967 restricting who may be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Waivers of these restrictions were permitted, but only minimal rules or guidelines were established for granting them. A month later, a dispute arose over the burial of M. Larry Lawrence, a Democratic fund-raiser and a former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland. There were concerns that Lawrence had falsified his service in the United States Merchant Marine (a branch of the U.S. military during World War II), and that his role as a U.S. diplomatic envoy did not make him eligible for burial in the cemetery. At the height of the controversy (some Republicans claimed that Lawrence had been granted a burial waiver because of his role as a fund-raiser), Metzler said that he would have granted the waiver anyway. Lawrence had died while still serving as ambassador, and that would have qualified him for Arlington burial, Metzler said.

The controversy led to an investigation of Metzler's handling of burial waivers. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the United States House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, assisted by staff from the Government Accounting Office, began an investigation in December 1997. Nine cases were identified where Metzler had denied burial, but had been reversed. The House subcommittee found that record-keeping at Arlington National Cemetery was so poor that not enough hard evidence of wrongdoing could be uncovered. The decision caused an uproar. Veterans offered to give up their burial sites to allow him to be buried at Arlington, legislation was introduced in Congress to force the cemetery to bury him, and Senator John W. Warner and others pushed Metzler to consider new evidence that indicated Burlingame was fighting the hijackers at the time of his death. Metzler subsequently granted the waiver, and Burlingame was buried at Arlington on December 12, 2001. The Tomb underwent repairs in 1933, 1975, and 1989 (then later two under Metzler's tenure as Superintendent).

Metzler ordered a detailed inspection of the monument by the firm of Oehrlein and Associates in 1989, which produced a report in 1990. He hoped to donate the old pieces to a museum. Metzler refused comment on these controversies, The study, released in August 2008, identified four alternatives (do nothing; repair the tomb until it cannot be repaired any further; repair the tomb but begin planning for replacement; replace the tomb). In June 2009, Metzler announced that the third option would be implemented, and that Arlington National Cemetery had accepted the donation of a block of marble from the original quarry which cut the stone for the tomb in 1931.

Photographs of burials Metzler faced a controversy over photographs of the burials of American war dead in 2009. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense instituted a ban on photography of the arrival of dead American servicemen at Dover Air Force Base and their burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The decision caused a public controversy. Metzler defended Arlington National Cemetery's policy of leaving it up to the next of kin to permit photography (as long as photographers were kept at a distance so as not to intrude on the burial). The policy "has worked well", Metzler said. "Obviously it is traumatic, but how the military does it, with the precision and respect, is a very positive thing. I think the public also looks at it as positive."

Final years and retirement As Superintendent, Metzler established Arlington National Cemetery's first Web site on April 17, 2000.

Metzler oversaw a rapid rise in the number of burials and expansion in the cemetery's columbaria in his final years as Superintendent. The advanced age of many servicemembers in the World War II veteran cohort and deaths due to the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan doubled to 30 the number of funerals held per day by 2007. The rapid increase in the number of daily funerals led to a shortage of caissons, horses, military honors teams, and other personnel and equipment, leading several U.S. Senators to question Metzler's budgetary leadership. Extensive building of columbaria also occurred. The first columbarium at Arlington was built in 1980, and a second completed in 1991 just after Metzler assumed the position of Superintendent. Inurnments at Arlington rose from 427 in 1980 to 2,342 in 2003, and cremations accounted for half of the 6,000 funerals the cemetery conducted each year.

By May 25, 2009, Metzler had supervised more than 30,000 funerals in 18 years.