Walk up the hill at Arlington National Cemetery on a humid July afternoon and you’ll hear something weird. Silence. In a world of notification pings and highway drone, the plaza at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier feels like a vacuum. It’s heavy. People are standing there, sweating through their shirts, watching a lone soldier in a crisp blue uniform walk exactly 21 steps across a black mat. Then he waits. Twenty-one seconds. He turns, shifts his rifle to the outside shoulder—a gesture meant to keep the weapon between the crowd and the tomb—and walks back.
He does this all day. He does it when the tourists go home. He does it when it’s three in the morning and a Nor'easter is dumping six inches of slush on the Potomac.
Most people think this is just a monument to "the fallen." Honestly, that’s only half the story. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier isn’t just a grave; it’s a specific solution to a massive psychological problem that wrecked the world after 1918. Before World War I, if you died in a ditch in France, your family probably never saw you again. There was no DNA testing. No digital dental records. Just a hole in the ground and a telegram. The Tomb changed that. It gave a name to the nameless.
The chaos that built the white marble
World War I was a meat grinder. The scale of destruction was something the human brain wasn't wired to handle. By 1920, thousands of American families had no body to bury. Their sons were just "missing." That kind of "ambiguous loss" is a special kind of hell. You can't grieve because there's no proof of death.
Great Britain and France got the idea first. They buried their own unknowns in 1920. America followed suit in 1921. But they didn't just pick a random body and call it a day. The process was almost obsessively meticulous to ensure no one could ever identify the soldier. Congressman Hamilton Fish III was the guy who pushed for the legislation, and he insisted on absolute anonymity.
They brought four bodies from four different American cemeteries in France—Aisne-Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Somme, and St. Mihiel. Sgt. Edward F. Younger, a highly decorated veteran who had been wounded in combat, was chosen to pick the one. He didn't use a clipboard or a checklist. He was handed a spray of white roses and told to walk into a room with four identical caskets. He circled them three times. He finally placed the roses on the third casket.
That man became the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He was brought home on the USS Olympia, and when he arrived at the Navy Yard in D.C., the reception was more intense than anything we’d see for a celebrity today. It wasn't about him as an individual. It was about every mother in Nebraska or Georgia who could look at that casket and think, That might be my boy.
The Sentinels: It's not just a fancy walk
You see these guys—the Sentinels from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, "The Old Guard"—and you think it’s just ceremony. It's not. It’s an endurance sport.
To become a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you have to be within a specific height range (5'10" to 6'4"). You have to pass a test that is frankly ridiculous. They have to memorize seven pages of Arlington National Cemetery history verbatim. Not "the gist" of it. Every comma. Every date. If they mess up a word during the "walk-through," they fail.
And the uniform? Don't even get me started. A Sentinel spends hours—literally hours—prepping their blues. They use a blowtorch to get the "glass" shine on their shoes. They thick-press their coats. There are no rank insignia on the tunics because they don't want to outrank the Unknowns. In that plaza, the dead are the highest-ranking people present.
- They walk 21 steps.
- They face the Tomb for 21 seconds.
- They face the North for 21 seconds.
- They walk 21 steps back.
Why 21? It’s the highest symbolic honor: the 21-gun salute. It is a constant, rhythmic cycle of respect that has not stopped since July 2, 1937. Think about that. Through every hurricane, through the 9/11 attacks when smoke was billowing from the Pentagon just over the hill, through the 2024 snowstorms—the guard stayed.
What happened to the Vietnam Unknown?
This is the part that gets complicated. For a long time, there were four crypts. One for WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. But science caught up with the mystery.
In the late 90s, rumors started swirling about the Vietnam Unknown. Through the work of historians and DNA technology, people began to suspect the body belonged to Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie. His A-37B Dragonfly had been shot down near An Loc in 1972. In 1998, they exhumed the body. The DNA was a match.
Blassie was sent home to St. Louis. But this created a philosophical crisis for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. If we can identify everyone now, is the "Unknown" a relic of the past? The Vietnam crypt now sits empty. The slab was replaced with a new inscription: "Honoring and Keeping Faith with America's Missing Servicemen." It’s a shift from honoring a body to honoring an absence.
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The architecture of grief
The actual monument you see today—the big white sarcophagus—wasn't finished until 1932. It’s made of Yule marble from Colorado. It’s actually pretty simple if you look closely. The side facing Washington D.C. has three figures carved into it: Peace, Victory, and Valor.
The back side has an inscription that everyone should read at least once: Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.
It’s easy to get cynical about monuments. We live in an era where we tear things down or argue about their "true" meaning. But the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier usually escapes the vitriol. Why? Because it’s one of the few places that doesn't ask you to celebrate a war. It asks you to acknowledge the cost. It’s a 79-ton block of marble sitting on top of a guy who had a name, a favorite meal, and a girl waiting for him, but who ended up as a symbol instead of a person.
Visiting without being "that guy"
If you’re planning to go to Arlington, you need to understand the vibe. It's not a "tourist attraction" in the way the Lincoln Memorial is. It’s a functional cemetery.
The Changing of the Guard happens every hour on the hour (and every half hour during the summer). If you talk, the Sentinel will stop. He will look at you. He will command you to remain silent. It is incredibly awkward if you’re the one who gets called out.
- Turn off your ringer. Seriously. A "Marimba" ringtone during the inspection of the rifle is a soul-crushing experience for everyone involved.
- Don't lean on the rails. * Stand up. When the guard is changed, you stand. Even if your knees hurt. Even if it’s 95 degrees.
What most people miss
The most interesting part of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier isn't the marble. It's the "Mat."
The black mat the Sentinels walk on is replaced frequently because they literally wear a path into it. But look at the ground around the mat. You’ll see a slight discoloration in the stone. That’s from decades of the same 21-step path being trodden by thousands of different men and women. It’s a physical manifestation of time.
There's also the "Tomb Guard Identification Badge." It’s the least-awarded badge in the U.S. Army. Only about 700 people have ever earned it. It’s one of the few badges that can be revoked even after a soldier leaves the military if they do something to bring dishonor to the Tomb. That’s the level of commitment we’re talking about.
Is it still relevant?
In 2026, we have satellite tracking and forensic technology that would seem like sorcery to the guys who built this in 1921. We rarely have "unknowns" anymore. We have the "Missing in Action," but usually, we eventually find a bone fragment or a dog tag that gives us a name.
Does that make the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier an anachronism? Probably not. If anything, it’s more vital now. It serves as a placeholder for the concept of sacrifice without credit. In a world where everyone is trying to be "seen" and "followed" and "liked," here is a place dedicated to someone who lost everything—including his identity—and is honored specifically for that loss.
How to actually experience the history
Don't just watch the ceremony and leave. To really "get" the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you have to do a little legwork.
First, visit the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater right behind the tomb. Inside the display rooms, you’ll find the medals that were awarded to the Unknowns by foreign governments. You’ll see the Victoria Cross from the UK and the Médaille Militaire from France. It shows that this wasn't just an American moment; it was a global acknowledgement of the industrial-scale death that the 20th century invented.
Second, go find the grave of Sgt. Edward Younger. He’s the guy who picked the WWI Unknown. He’s buried in Section 18. It’s a quiet way to close the loop on the story.
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Lastly, check out the "Mast of the Maine" nearby. It ties the whole concept of naval loss and the "unknown" together.
Next Steps for Your Visit:
- Check the Arlington National Cemetery website for the exact "Summer" vs. "Winter" hours for the Changing of the Guard; the switch usually happens in April and October.
- Download the "ANC Explorer" app before you get to the gates. Cell service can be spotty, and the cemetery is 639 acres. You will get lost without it.
- Allocate at least three hours. If you rush through the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier just to check it off a list, you'll miss the actual weight of the place.
- Walk from the visitor center rather than taking the tram if you’re physically able. The slow climb up the hill builds the necessary context for what you're about to see.