20 Hidden Details Inside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier honors service members who made the ultimate sacrifice without having their remains identified. Rather than celebrating an individual commander, it elevates every lost soldier to the status of a revered national hero.

For grieving families whose fallen relatives disappeared on foreign battlefields, the tomb serves as a personal headstone. Citizens visit the site knowing their missing brother, father, or comrade might be the very soldier resting beneath the stone.

The unprecedented artillery bombardments of the Western Front destroyed dog tags, equipment, and human remains on an industrial scale. Nations faced the reality that hundreds of thousands of soldiers would never have an individual gravesite.

On 11 November 1920, exactly two years after the armistice ended the Great War, Great Britain and France conducted simultaneous state burials. Britain entombed a warrior in Westminster Abbey, while France buried a soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

Resting inside Westminster Abbey, the British Unknown Warrior was buried in one hundred sacks of earth brought directly from the battlefields of France. Royal brides lay their wedding bouquets on the stone, but no visitor is permitted to walk across it.

Beneath the soaring arches of Paris's Arc de Triomphe, the French Unknown Soldier rests beneath bronze lettering and floral wreaths. An eternal flame lit in November 1923 has never been extinguished, rekindled every evening at 6:30 PM by veterans.

Following the Franco-British dedications, dozens of sovereign nations created their own unknown soldier memorials. Renowned examples include Italy's Altare della Patria in Rome, Canada's National War Memorial in Ottawa, and Australia's War Memorial in Canberra.

Perched on a grassy ridge in Arlington, Virginia, the U.S. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier overlooks the Potomac River and the monuments of Washington. It sits directly on the plaza of the neoclassical Memorial Amphitheater.

Congress authorized the memorial in early 1921 to receive an unidentified casualty from the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Over one hundred thousand spectators lined the procession route as President Harding officiated the state funeral.

To guarantee absolute anonymity, four unidentified American bodies were exhumed from four separate French military cemeteries. Decorated World War I sergeant Edward F. Younger walked around the four unmarked caskets and placed a spray of white roses on the chosen one.

On Memorial Day in 1958, two additional unknown service members were entombed in marble crypts on the plaza. President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented both with the Medal of Honor before they were placed beside their World War I brother in arms.

During Memorial Day ceremonies in 1984, President Ronald Reagan presided over the interment of the Vietnam Unknown. Forensic technology had already improved, leaving very few unidentifiable casualties from Southeast Asia.

At the request of his family, the Pentagon exhumed the Vietnam Unknown in 1998 for mitochondrial DNA testing. Scientists proved the remains belonged to downed pilot First Lieutenant Michael Blassie, who was reinterred in his hometown, leaving the plaza crypt empty.

The neoclassical sarcophagus was quarried from the high-elevation Yule quarry in Marble, Colorado. Weighing roughly fifty-six tons upon extraction, the massive block required a custom seventy-five-man logging team and special railcars to transport.

Carved into the east facade facing Washington are three classical draped figures in low relief. Sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones depicted Peace holding an olive branch, flanked by Victory holding a palm frond and Valor holding a sheathed sword.

Facing the neoclassical Memorial Amphitheater, the western panel bears the words: 'Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.' The phrase was penned by General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces.

On 2 July 1937, the military initiated an unbroken 24-hour guard schedule that has continued without interruption for nearly a century. Even during Category 3 hurricanes, historic blizzards, and government shutdowns, Tomb Sentinels remain on their post.

The sentinels are selected from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, nicknamed The Old Guard, which dates back to 1784. Soldiers undergo months of intensive training, memorizing hundreds of pages of cemetery history and perfecting every crease of their uniform.

Every movement of the guard walk is governed by the number twenty-one, reflecting the 21-gun salute, the highest military honor. A sentinel takes exactly twenty-one crisp steps down the black mat, turns toward the tomb for twenty-one seconds, and turns back for twenty-one seconds.

The Tomb Guard Identification Badge is the third least-awarded qualification badge in the entire United States Army. Recruits must complete a grueling test on cemetery history, uniform preparation, and precision rifle drill with a score of 95 percent or higher.