by Mark Silva and updated at 5:30 pm EDT
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery near his brothers, former President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the Pentagon said today.
Kennedy, 77, was not only a veteran of the Army, but also a 46-year member of the U.S. Senate, which accorded him rights for burial at the national cemetery in Virginia, across the Potomac River from the Capitol where he served for nearly five decades.
President Barack Obama, spending a week's vacation with his family at Martha's Vineyard, plans to speak at a funeral mass for Kennedy in Boston on Saturday.
The Massachusetts Democrat, who died late Tuesday following a year-long battle with brain cancer, will be laid to rest near the grave of his brother Robert, who was assassinated in 1968 as he campaigned for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
That, in turn, is near and up a hill from the resting place of their older brother, the president, who was slain in Dallas in 1963. The former president is buried there near other members of his family, including the former first lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.
The third of the Kennedy brothers to receive a burial with military honors at Arlington served in the Army from 1951 to 1953, stationed in Europe during the Korean War. He was a private first class in the military police for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, then located in Paris.
(Above, the flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery. Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images.)
Kennedy's body will lie in repose at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston starting Thursday.
A funeral mass is planned Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica - the "Mission Church '' - in the city's Mission Hill neighborhood. The basilica is where Kennedy prayed daily while his daughter, Kara, successfully battled her own cancer.
After the mass in Boston, Kennedy will be buried later that day at Arlington.
Arlington National Cemetery, site of Tomb of the Unknowns, also is the burial ground for more than 300,000 people. It was created in 1864 on land once owned by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Some of the veterans of all the nation's wars rest there, with some from ante-Bellum conflicts reinterred in 1900.
Christi Parsons contributed from Martha's Vineyard.
Comments
RIP Teddy Kennedy - you will be missed.
*And to the Wingnut cretins on here who are doing nothing but bringing up Chappaquiddick today, thinking that some how you're going to score some political points by doing so - you do nothing but prove that you are classless pieces of crap every single day.
It's no wonder you can't win elections anymore.
Posted by: jbob | August 26, 2009 2:32 PM
RIP Ted. Although you may not like policies of the Kennedy famly, they have given their lives to it. Keep that in mind while you slam them and glorify Glenn Beck.
Posted by: bill r. | August 26, 2009 3:56 PM
A Senator who passionately put the interests of the American people ahead of his own. Rare indeed, and certainly to be memorialized.
Posted by: Ed McGuinness | August 27, 2009 8:55 AM
Nice blog entry about Ted Kennedy: http://steveboss.blogspot.com/2009/08/last-of-kennedys.html
Posted by: Marcus D. | August 27, 2009 9:41 AM
I'm a Republican. I disagreed with most of what Sen . Kennedy stood for.... But all must agree...he was passionate about the issues that were important to him.....
Posted by: John Longwell | August 27, 2009 11:03 AM
Strange how none of the media seem to care about where Mary Jo Kopechne is buried. Her life was snuffed out at age 29 when Kennedy left her to drown in his overturned car.
No Arlington ceremony for Mary Jo; no national mourning for her.
Posted by: Norton | August 27, 2009 12:40 PM
Silly wingnut RepubliTrash can't get over the fact they lost the MANDATE ELKECTION OF NOVEMBER 2008 and got kicked to the curb by the American people. They lost 13 Senate seats and 53 House seats...does this sound like a party anyone wants to be associated with anymore ?
I think not.
Posted by: Plowhandle | August 27, 2009 7:26 PM
Silly wingnut RepubliTrash can't get over the fact they lost the MANDATE ELECTION OF NOVEMBER 2008 and got kicked to the curb by the American people. They lost 13 Senate seats and 53 House seats...does this sound like a party anyone wants to be associated with anymore ?
I think not.
Posted by: Plowhandle | August 27, 2009 7:26 PM
Kennedy's military service was interesting. According to his NNDB biography, he enlisted for four years in the Army in 1951 after being expelled for the second time from Milton Academy. He had intended to sign up for two years. His father interceded and got his enlistment reduced to two years and got him assigned to Paris. He never advanced beyond private, according to his biography.
Posted by: Kerry | August 28, 2009 8:47 PM