President John F. Kennedy is one of only two U.S. presidents buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. President William H. Taft was buried at Arlington in 1930. Kennedy's life is celebrated daily at the cemetery by over 4-million visitors to his grave each year. It had been reported, at the time of Kennedy's assassination, that he would be buried in his hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts. But his widow Jacqueline Kennedy, stated simply: "He belongs to the people,' and the slain president was buried at the military cemetery outside Washington, D.C. The actual burial site at Arlington was chosen by the president's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and approved by Mrs. Kennedy. The plot is on a slope below Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial mansion.
Mrs. Kennedy asked for an eternal flame, similar to that of the French Unknown Soldier in Paris. She and Robert Kennedy lit the propane fame with a torch at the end of funeral ceremonies on November 25, 1963. A few weeks later, two Kennedy children were reburied in Arlington alongside their father, an unnamed stillborn daughter, and Patrick Bouvier Kennedy who predeceased JFK by fifteen weeks. On May 23, 1994, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Bouvier Onassis was buried next to President Kennedy.
The entire site is a total 3.2 acres, set aside by the government to honor President Kennedy. The grave area is paved with granite stones from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where the Kennedy family has their ancestral summer home. The stones at Arlington were personally selected by Kennedy family members. Sedum and clover are planted in crevices between the stones, to simulate rocks lying naturally in a Massachusetts field. The eternal flame rises from a five-foot, flat circle of granite.
A special burner was designed with a constant electric spark which re-lights the natural gas flame if it is extinguished by rain, wind or accident. A tour of Arlington Cemetery is never complete without a stop at the grave site of this beloved U.S. president, who inspired an entire nation in the early 1960s.
