Arlington National Cemetery is one of the most sacred places in our area – but it can also be confusing to tourists and families of the fallen.
A local man has built a cell phone application to help.
Ron Novak’s father Ronald John Novak was an Army intelligence officer. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors last fall after battling lung cancer.
When Ron Novak returned to Arlington to visit, he had trouble locating a friend’s grave. The rows and rows of grave sites can be overwhelming. That sparked his idea.
“We’re kind of wandering around Section 59 where my dad was buried, Section 60 was across the way. We really need to come up with an app,” Novak said.
Novak is the executive vice president of the information technology service provider Segue Technologies in Arlington. He got to work.
The app is available for download from Apple’s store now. It’s free and pulls gravesite information with a name search, date of birth or death.
To Novak, the app is his personal way to help military families and honor his father’s legacy, even though he jokes the older Novak would be mad at his son.
“He didn’t want to be a bother to anyoneÖ humble man. But I knew he was deserving of being buried at Arlington National,” Novak said.
Reports of misplaced grave records at the cemetery are still an issue. This application pulls records from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ existing gravesite database.
