Arlington National Cemetery plans to release a new smartphone app this fall that will provide a virtual tour of the grounds, list events and help visitors locate gravesites.
The application will be available in October and is currently in beta testing, said Maj. Nick Miller, the chief information officer for the cemetery.
The app provides a real-time schedule of burials, wreath-laying ceremonies and other events at the cemetery. Employees there have been using a similar internal application since March to help manage daily activities at the cemetery.
“You’ll see all of the burials at the cemetery on any given day, and you can zoom to the location,” Miller said.
The web-based application is in sharp contrast to the rooms full of paper records and tattered maps that employees used to keep track of burial locations two years ago, prior to an inspector general report and public outcry over misidentified sites.
About 25,000 of the 400,000 burial records at the cemetery still need to be checked, he said, which is one reason the app isn’t going live until October.
