The most dangerous gravesite in the US resides in Arlington Cemetery
By Claire Barrett
Friday, Oct 24, 2025
The cemetery, consisting of 639 acres, is the final resting place of approximately 400,000 veterans and their dependents. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
It had been nearly five years since Winston Churchill had declared that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” and plunged the West in a Cold War and a hot race for armament with the East.
Yet worlds away from Washington and Moscow, in a remote outpost 40 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho, a town would soon become home to America’s first nuclear accident.
On Jan. 3, 1961, operators from the U.S. Army’s Stationary Lower Power Reactor One, or SL-1, were returning from a 10-day holiday break.
Among them was Army Spc. John Arthur Byrnes, Navy Seabee Richard Carlton Legg and SP4 Richard McKinley.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/veterans/military-history/2025/10/24/the-most-dangerous-gravesite-in-the-us-resides-in-arlington-cemetery/
