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WASHINGTON (CNN) - Following controversy over President Obama's decision to continue a presidential tradition of honoring Confederate war dead on Memorial Day, the White House confirmed Monday that a wreath will now also be placed at a monument to African-American Civil War dead.

Critics had called for an end to the longtime presidential practice of laying a wreath at the Confederate memorial. Last week, in a letter to Obama over the issue, roughly five dozen professors called the tradition offensive to African-Americans. In recent days, some observers had suggested the addition of the African-American memorial as a possible compromise.

On Monday morning, the president visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. A wreath was placed there, as well as four other sites honoring American war dead: the mast of the USS Maine; the Spanish American War Memorial; the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery; and the African-American Civil War Memorial in Washington, DC.

ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) - President Obama called on all Americans on Monday to remember U.S. troops who died in the service of their country.

The president issued his call after participating at the annual Memorial Day wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknowns.

The men and women buried at Arlington "waged war so that we may know peace," Obama said.

"They were willing to give up everything for the defense of our freedom [and] were willing to sacrifice all for their country. ... They are the best of America."

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With the Google Earth layer, users can click on service members' names, hometowns and profiles.

(CNN) – Each year on Memorial Day, tens of thousands of Americans visit Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington to pay tribute to the men and women who died serving the United States.

For people who are unable to make the trip, a new online memorial provides a unique way to honor those service members who have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new Google Earth layer, called Map the Fallen, enables the user to pinpoint where, when, and how each service member died since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. A line connects the service member's approximate location of death to his or her hometown.

Watch: John King explains the new online memorial

The interactive tool - available at mapthefallen.org - also offers a detailed profile of each person.

Sean Askay, a Google engineer with no military affiliation who developed the layer in his free time, explains the project on his blog.

"I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories - you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial Web sites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died," he writes.

The layer works on a timeline system, so it shows each U.S. and coalition troop death chronologically, dating back to the first one in Afghanistan on October 10, 2001. The user can search for a fallen service member by name, age, gender, hometown, or location of death.

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Arlington's Section 60 is the final resting place for many casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Flowers arrived at Capt. Marissa Alexander's office at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on June 3, 2005.

Her husband, Staff Sgt. Leroy Alexander, was half a world away fighting with the Special Forces in Afghanistan, but he had found a way to send a floral arrangement to his wife, who was five months pregnant with twins.

"He called me and asked me what building I worked in. He said he had to update some records," Alexander said. The flowers lifted her spirits.

But a few hours later, her emotions would be thrown into a tailspin. Alexander saw two Army officers in dress uniforms knock on her front door.

One of the officers started to talk: "We regret to inform you..."

If he said any more, Alexander doesn't remember. "The next memory I have is in my kitchen, banging on the floor. I just couldn't believe it," she said.

The good feelings from flowers delivered a few hours before were gone, replaced by shock, pain and mourning.

A roadside bomb had made her a widow.

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