Who is the only person to be buried three times in Arlington National Cemetery?

Air Force Major Troy Gilbert (born Feb. 19, 1972) is the only person to be buried three times in Arlington National Cemetery. He was interred at Arlington in bits and pieces in 2006, 2013 and 2016. Each time he received a full ceremony including a lone bugler playing taps. Gilbert's grave in section 60 has remained in the same place for all those years.

Gilbert was 34 (married with 5 children) when he was killed on Nov. 27, 2006 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His F-16 crashed as he strafed al Qaeda-linked trucks threatening U.S. soldiers on the ground 20 miles northwest of Baghdad. Scraps of his remains were recovered at the scene within hours in 2006 while additional bone fragments were found and returned to the U.S. in 2013 with over 95% of his body unaccounted for. Iraqi militants had snatched his body following the crash, and moved it among themselves going from tribal leader to tribal leader. But a U.S. special-operations secret raid finally got the rest of his body back in 2016. "Brave Americans doggedly pursued the return of Troy Gilbert," says Robin Rand, a four-star Air Force general. Rand commanded Gilbert, both stateside and on his last assignment. "Troy's home, and, for me, that's enough."