Welcome to the grave of John F Kennedy, parts of his family and the Eternal Flame.
The John F Kennedy Eternal Flame presidential memorial is one of the centerpieces of the
Arlington National Cemetery and it pays honor to one of most famous of all US presidents.
Keep in mind that the site you are standing at is a grave and not a tourist attraction,
so please pay the appropriate respect.
Before going into detail about the memorial itself, I want to give you a summary of the
man this site is dedicated to; John F Kennedy.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or "JFK" as he is also known, as born in 1917 in Brookline,
Massachusetts.
John was the second son of Joseph P Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald, whose father was a prominent
Boston politician.
JFK however, didn't become a politician right away.
After his studies, which included several public and private schools and an international
affairs degree from Harvard, John volunteered for the US Army during the Second World War.
He served several years in the US Navy, first in office and then later on the field where
he took part in several missions in the Pacific.
John older brother, Joseph Jr., was the one who were suppose to carry the family's political
traditions on.
However, Joseph served as a pilot during the Second World War and was killed during one
of his missions.
Joseph's death was one of the reasons John decided to get involved in politics.
John quickly became a successful politician and tried to become Democratic Party's vice
president choice for the 1956 elections.
He failed, but decided to run for President himself four years later.
This time he was successful and he became the 35th US President after beating Richard
Nixon in one of the closest presidential races in the 20th century.
John F Kennedy was a strong believer in civil rights, which came to shape his domestic and
foreign policies.
He is also known for his famous speeches.
During his inaugural address, he delivered the legendary; "Ask not what your country
can do for you - ask what you can do for your country".
Kennedy's was the president in a very tough era.
He was facing the Cold War, with the newly erected Berlin Wall, the Vietnam War and the
Cuban Missile Crises.
He was also president during the ongoing race to space where he said; "We choose to go to
the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they
are hard."
On November 22nd, 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed in an open limousine during
a parade on a campaign trip to Dallas.
Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the schoolbook depository from which the shots were suspected
to have been fired from, was arrested and charged with the assassination of Kennedy.
He denied shooting anyone and claimed he was set up.
Before any trials could be held, Oswald himself was shot at point-blank range and killed during
the move to a high security prison.
The motives for all these shootings are still to a large extent unknown.
After Kennedy's death, many believed he would be buried in the state of Massachusetts, as
it was the common practice that former presidents were buried in their home states.
Jacqueline Kennedy however had a wish which simply stated that he should belong to the
people.
With this, the possibility of placing Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery was investigated.
Arlington seemed the perfect choice, as it is one of the largest cemeteries in the US
where hundreds of thousands of people, who also gave their life for their country, is
buried.
Three sites within the cemetery were considered and the final choice fell on the slope area
below Arlington House.
The grave of Kennedy is directly aligned with the Memorial Bridge and the Lincoln Memorial.
JFK's funeral was also modeled after Abraham Lincoln's funeral, as a wish of Jacqueline
Kennedy.
Both were two great presidents and both became assassinated.
It was also his wife's wish to place the eternal flame on his grave, a flame you can still
see burning today.
The flame was inspired by the French Tomb of the Unknown Solider under the Arch of Triumph
in Paris, which the Kennedys had visited earlier in 1961.
The planners who were organizing the funeral granted her request immediately and rushed
to implement it.
Overnight, the engineers ran a gas line to the planned gravesite, fed by propane tanks
from a distance.
The state funeral was held on November 25th, 1963, where several heads of states were attending.
At the end of the burial service, Jacqueline Kennedy lit the flame with a lightened taper.
About a month after it was lit, the flame was extinguished when a Catholic school group
visiting the site poured, rather than sprinkled, holy water directly onto the flame.
The burner of today prevents accidents like this from happening.
It is specially designed by the Institute of Gas Technology of Chicago.
It consists of a constantly flashing electric spark near the tip of the nozzle which instantly
relights the gas if the flame should be extinguished by rain, wind or accident.
The fuel is natural gas and is mixed with a controlled quantity of air to achieve the
color and shape of the flame.
If you look at the grounds you see JFK's burial plaque in the ground together with his wife's
next to him.
On the far sides you can also see two smaller plaques.
These are for the two of Kennedy's children, who also are buried on the site.
One of them, a son, was born five and a half weeks prematurely and died two days later.
The other, a daughter, was dead on birth.
The burial site quickly became crowded after it opened to the public, as many people wanted
to visit the grave of their newly lost president.
During the first year, often as many as 3,000 people an hour visited the Kennedy gravesite
and on weekends an estimated 50,000 people visited the grave.
This led to the construction of a gravesite more suitable for visitors, with a paved area
surrounding the graves.
The area was paved with irregular stones of Cape Cod granites, stones which had been quarried
at a site near the president's home in Brookline.
Close to the JFK Eternal Flame, you can find the gravesites of John's brothers; Robert
and Edward "Ted" Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy, a Senator who also became assassinated during a run for Presidency,
is buried about 100 feet away from the Eternal Flame and their brother Ted, a longtime Senator,
is buried about 100 feet farther away.
Over the years, the JFK Eternal Flame has been visited by millions of people.
It has become a symbol for JFK and what he stood for.
The memorial has been the official postage stamp, with a picture of the flame together
with the text: "And the glow from that fire can truly light the world".
This phrase was delivered during Kennedy's inaugural address by John himself; a man whose
own fire burned, and still burns, to light the world.