Arlington National Cemetery
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
Arlington's solemn rows frame the motorcade's restrained thrum and graveside vigil; transforms private anniversary grief into public duty's threshold, where Leo's phone intel breaches mourning hush amid pale markers and distant honors.
Hushed reverence pierced by urgent undertones
Transition space from personal reflection to national command
Confluence of fallen loyalty and looming threats
Heavily secured by Secret Service for presidential visit
Arlington's vast rows of markers frame the event's core tension, transforming a sacred memorial into an ad-hoc security briefing ground where motorcade idles nearby, forcing collision of private grief with public peril.
Solemn hush fractured by clipped urgency and distant engine hum.
Staging ground for grief-to-duty transition and intel drop.
Embodies sacrifice—personal and national—fueling resolve.
Secured by presidential motorcade and Secret Service.
Invoked directly as 'cemetery' in Bartlet's thanks to Charlie for yesterday's visit on Landingham's anniversary; symbolizes irreplaceable loss, catalyzing vulnerability and the mandate to seek replacement, fusing personal mourning with operational necessity.
Somber, recalled grief under daylight markers.
Emotional anchor referenced for gratitude and transition.
Marker of human cost in leadership's unyielding march.
Arlington is invoked by C.J. as the next destination and a temporal device to end the briefing; it provides logistical cover to move the press and staff and continue official business elsewhere.
A routinized, ritualistic destination that contrasts present chaos with institutional order.
Practical transit endpoint and symbolic locus for ceremonial duty and continued operations.
Signals the public, ceremonial face of national consequence—where matters of loss and honor are finally processed.
Invoked as the immediate destination causing the schedule constraint: C.J. cites Arlington departure time to justify ending the briefing, converting ceremonial logistics into a narrative brake on questioning.
Sober and ritualistic in implication—Arlington's mention carries gravitas that short‑circuits frivolous argument.
Physical destination whose timing is used to enforce brevity and defer detailed operational discussion.
Represents state ritual and the weight of duty; its invocation elevates the need for decorum and schedule fidelity.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
At Mrs. Landingham's grave on the anniversary of her death, Bartlet vulnerably confesses to Charlie and the grave about seeing a therapist for insomnia, humanizing his grief amid national crisis. …
Transitioning from graveside grief over Mrs. Landingham's anniversary, Bartlet overrides Leo's reluctance to discuss urgent intelligence at Arlington Cemetery. Insisting they walk to the motorcade, Bartlet absorbs Leo's revelation of …
In the basement hallway, after strategizing crises with Leo, President Bartlet pauses to thank Charlie for joining him at Mrs. Landingham's gravesite on the first anniversary of her death, exposing …
Under an increasingly hostile press pack, C.J. is forced to acknowledge operational facts she had tried to manage: Minneapolis radar tracked Captain Hutchins, Saudi airspace was used with notification on …
Under mounting pressure about the downed F‑117, C.J. delivers terse operational details—'Feet Dry' tracking, use of Saudi airspace, when the British were notified—and abruptly terminates the briefing to preserve the …