[6] Metzler says he used to play among the tombstones and trees, used to ride a sled down the cemetery's snow-covered hills, and had an "uncanny ease" with the ceremony and procedures of military burial.

[7] His favorite places were the warehouse (where he would talk to the repairmen), his father's office in the administration building, and the overlook facing the Washington Monument on the grounds of Arlington House.

[7] Metzler moved his family (his sons were teenagers in 1991) into the Superintendent's two-story lodge on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

[9] In 1999, Metzler acknowledged at a congressional hearing that large amount of deferred maintenance (such as a large hole in the ceiling of the Memorial Amphitheater chapel, damaged sidewalks at the Tomb of the Unknowns, cracked and broken flagstones at the columbarium, and corrosion of the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame) had created a $200 million, 30-year backlog of issues.

[10] Metzler said the cemetery had done the best it could with limited resources, and had placed its focus on the ever-increasing number of burials and inurnments which occurred there each week.

Metzler oversaw the implementation of a $1.4 million plan (developed before his appointment as Superintendent) to clear a former 13 acres (5.3 ha) parking lot to create space for new graves.

[13] The Millennium Project expanded Arlington's physical boundaries for the first time since the 1960s, and this was the largest expansion of burial space at the site since American Civil War.

[16] In 1997 and 1998, Metzler also handled several scandals involving waivers which would permit ineligible individuals to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

[17] The burial waiver controversy broke in November 1997 when the news media reported that United States Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen had allegedly put pressure on the Army and Metzler to allow Republican congressional staffer Robert Charles to bury his father, Roland W. Charles, at Arlington even though he was ineligible for burial there.

There were concerns that Lawrence had falsified his service in the United States Merchant Marine (a branch of the U.S. military during World War II), and that his role as a U.S. diplomatic envoy did not make him eligible for burial in the cemetery.

[20] A few days after the scandal broke, Lawrence's widow moved her husband's body from Arlington National Cemetery, making the issue moot.

[17] In January 1998, as the House investigation continued, the burial of an ineligible National Guardsman at Arlington raised further questions about the cemetery's waiver procedures.

[24] The House subcommittee found that record-keeping at Arlington National Cemetery was so poor that not enough hard evidence of wrongdoing could be uncovered.

Burlingame was initially ruled ineligible to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery because, as a reservist, he had not reached the age of 60 at the time of his death.

[34][35][36] Metzler refused comment on these controversies,[35] but did say that the cemetery wanted the public and preservation groups to provide input and that competitive bidding rules would be followed in any replacement process.

[38] In June 2009, Metzler announced that the third option would be implemented, and that Arlington National Cemetery had accepted the donation of a block of marble from the original quarry which cut the stone for the tomb in 1931.

In 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense instituted a ban on photography of the arrival of dead American servicemen at Dover Air Force Base and their burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Metzler defended Arlington National Cemetery's policy of leaving it up to the next of kin to permit photography (as long as photographers were kept at a distance so as not to intrude on the burial).

[42] Metzler oversaw a rapid rise in the number of burials and expansion in the cemetery's columbaria in his final years as Superintendent.

[43] The rapid increase in the number of daily funerals led to a shortage of caissons, horses, military honors teams, and other personnel and equipment, leading several U.S.