Arlington National Cemetery

More than 260,000 service personnel and their families are buried on the 612 acres of rolling Virginia land along the Potomac River. The land was deeded to the Custis family during the Revolutionary War, and the property was passed on to Robert E. Lee's wife, Mary Anna Custis Lee. The federal government confiscated the land when Mrs. Lee failed to pay her property taxes in person, and in 1864, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton designated Arlington House and the surrounding 200 acres a military cemetery.

Guests usually begin at the Arlington Cemetery Visitors Center, which offers exhibits and a bookshop. The most visited site is the grave of John F. Kennedy, marked by the eternal flame and flanked with concrete walls bearing quotes from JFK speeches. Buried alongside the 35th president are his wife, Jacqueline, and two infant children. Moving in its stark simplicity is the nearby grave of the president's brother and attorney general, Robert Kennedy, assassinated in 1968. A shallow pool, simple white cross, and plaque mark the site.

Other notables buried in Arlington include U.S. President and Supreme Court Justice William Howard Taft; Civil War veteran and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.; boxing champion Joe Louis; and Pierre L'Enfant, who designed Washington, DC.

A 20-minute walk from the Visitors Center is the Memorial Amphitheater, site of Veterans Day observances, in which the president lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, just east of the amphitheater. Here, a sentinel of the Third U.S. Infantry maintains a round-the-clock vigil. Once an hour during the day (every half hour during the summer) and every two hours at night, the guard is relieved in a brief, solemn ceremony.