the way. sandra endo has more on this. reporter: this memorial day many families of fallen service members may not be able to make it here to this sacred ground at arlington national cemetery but one young man is making the memory of troops buried here a click away for anyone in the world. one by one ricky keeps the spirit behind these headstones at arlington national cemetery alive online. you come here thinking what? it s sad. i look at the birth dates and death dates and think these are kids that aren t much older than me. reporter: the computer wiz started documenting the soldiers that fought in iraq and afghanistan and are buried at arlington. after he heard about the record keeping problems at the cemetery. he posted the information and pictures on his website called
one by one 17-year-old ricky gallaolend keeps these headstones alive, online. you come here thinking what? well, it s sad because i come here and i look at the birth dates and the death dates and i think, you know, these are kids that aren t much older than me. reporter: the computer whiz started documenting the 858 soldiers who fought in iraq and afghanistan and are buried at arlington. after he heard about the record keeping problems that cemetery. he posted the information and pictures on his website called preserveandhonor.com. it s received more than a million hits since it launched in october. what do you hope for when people logon to your website? i hope that they can go on and feel a little bit of comfort in knowing that, you know, they re not just a number of casualties or anything like
birth dates and death dates and i think these are kids that aren t much older than me. reporter: the computer wiz started documenting the 858 soldiers who fought in iraq and afghanistan and are buried at arlington. after he heard about the record keeping problems at the cemetery. he posted the information and pictures on his website called preserve and honor.com receiving more than a million hits since launching in october. what do you hope for when people logon to your website? i hope that they can go on and feel a little bit of comfort in knowing that they re not just a number of casualties or anything like that and they are actual people. reporter: an investigation by the army inspector general found 211 graves were mislabeled here and the cemetery is under fire for the record keeping system. we re in the process of modernizing our record keeping. it will make people who are doing sites like ricky s a lot easier because it will all be
recall that could have an effect on your weekend fun. first, the latest on the search and recovery efforts in joplin, missouri. scores of people are still unaccounted for on this memorial day weekend. 156 people are listed as missing and searchers still going through piles of debris and the death toll could rise and the confirmed number of deaths stands at 132 with more than 1,000 injured. more than 2,500 people have applied for federal disaster assistance to help with home repairs and personal losses. fema has approved $2.8 million in aid. president obama is returning from his overseas trip today and he s going to meet with emergency officials and tornado victims in joplin tomorrow. the president is expected to hear stories of sorrow and pain, as well as acts of bravery. cnn paul is standing in the debris of what was once a neighborhood in joplin, missouri. paul, how are the search and recovery efforts going? well, they re going very painstakingly slow. you can imagine
and i know that they are deceased and they know they are at the temporary morgue so we are in the process of identifying those people as quickly as possible so they know that they re not unaccounted for. they know where they are. the number of dead reached 139 today. 105 people remain missing. president obama is set to visit joplin tomorrow for a memorial service. the president of poland hosting the president of the united states today in warsaw. president obama said countries in turmoil today can learn from poland s example. we discussed the issue of how jointly we can promote democracy. the session that i had this morning with democracy promotion experts including many founders of solidarity who recently traveled to tunisia to share their advice and assistance is just a symbol of why poland is so important. it has gone through what many countries want to know go through and has done so successfully. and so the president is flying back to the united states right no