Death Benefits - Retiring from the Marine Corps? - Marine Corps Times

Death Benefits

While the Department of Veterans Affairs does not provide military funeral honors, the Defense Department does. However, the VA, the active-duty military and many veterans’ groups pool their resources to provide financial help, practical assistance and military honors.

Civilian funeral directors handling arrangements usually have forms to get VA burial benefits, plus Social Security and military entitlements.

Veterans who served on active duty, except those who received dishonorable discharges, are entitled to burial in a national cemetery, a government-provided headstone or marker, a flag and a Presidential Memorial Certificate. Flags can be obtained through any VA regional office and most post offices. All requests for benefits must be accompanied by proof of service in the form of a DD 214 discharge document.

Families of deceased retirees may be eligible for a variety of VA allowances to cover funeral and burial costs. For details, go to http://www.vba.va.gov/benefit_facts/Burial_and_Memorial/English/Burialeg_0406.doc.

Some programs designed to honor deceased military veterans:

Service-related death

VA will pay up to $2,000 toward burial expenses. If the veteran is buried in a VA national cemetery, some or all of the cost of transporting the deceased also may be reimbursed.

Nonservice-related death

VA will pay up to $300 toward burial and funeral expenses, and a $300 plot-interment allowance. If the death occurred while the veteran was in a VA hospital or under VA-contracted nursing home care, some or all of the costs for transporting the deceased’s remains also may be reimbursed.

Survivors of veterans who were receiving compensation or pensions may also be eligible for monthly payments.

The government provides free headstones and markers worldwide for veterans. Eligible family members (spouses and dependent children) buried in national, military base or state veterans’ cemeteries also are entitled to free headstones and markers.

Funeral honors

Honor guards are authorized for deceased retirees. Living retirees are eligible to serve on honor guards at the discretion of the military service secretary.

The Defense Department must provide, on request, at least two uniformed personnel, a bugler or a recording of “Taps,” and folding and presenting of a U.S. burial flag at every military funeral.

Whenever possible, the uniformed contingent comes from the deceased’s service branch. Veterans’ organizations also may provide honor guards.

The funeral director normally handles the details of getting an honor guard. An adjutant general’s office, duty officer or commander’s office at a local installation or reserve training center also can provide this service.

Veterans should get their military records in order as part of normal estate planning. Proof of service is needed for burial in a national cemetery, presence of an honor guard and burial benefits.

Interment in Arlington National Cemetery

Interment is offered for service members in the following categories, as long as their last period of active duty ended honorably:

•Any active-duty member of the armed forces (except those serving on active duty for training only).

•Any veteran retired from active military service.

•Any veteran retired from the reserves who served a period of active duty (other than for training) and is drawing retired pay, upon reaching age 60.

•Any service member separated honorably before Oct. 1, 1949, for medical reasons and who was rated 30 percent or greater disabled at time of discharge.

•Any former service member who has been awarded the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross (Navy Cross or Air Force Cross), Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star or Purple Heart.

•The current or any former president of the United States.

•Any former member of the armed forces who served on active duty (other than for training) and who held any of the following positions: an elective office of the U.S. government; Office of the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court or associate justice; an office listed, at the time the person held the position, in 5 USC 5312 or 5313 (Levels I and II of the Executive Schedule); the chief of a mission who was, at any time during his or her tenure, considered to be in Class I under the provisions of Section 411, Act of 13 August 1946, 60 Stat. 1002, as amended (22 USC 866) or as listed in State Department memorandum dated March 21, 1988.

•Any former prisoner of war who served honorably on active duty, whose last period of service terminated honorably and who died on or after Nov. 30, 1993.

•Spouses, minor children, permanently dependent children and certain unmarried adult children of any of the above eligible veterans.

•The widow or widower of a service member who is lost or buried at sea or officially determined to be missing in action, interred in a U.S. military cemetery overseas maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission or interred in Arlington National Cemetery as part of a group burial.

• The surviving spouse, minor child or permanently dependent child of any person already buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

•The parents of a minor child or permanently dependent child whose remains, based on the eligibility of a parent, already are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. (A spouse divorced from the eligible person, or widowed and remarried, is not eligible.)

•A former service member in the same grave with a close relative who already is buried and is the primary eligible person, provided certain conditions are met.

Arlington columbarium

The Arlington columbarium is available for cremated remains of all honorably discharged veterans and their eligible spouses and dependent children. Eligibility requirements basically are the same as those for burials in other national cemeteries.

Other national cemeteries

Military retirees, including retired reservists, and veterans who served on active duty and received discharges other than dishonorable are eligible for burial in any of the cemeteries operated by the VA in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and the 14 cemeteries operated by the National Park Service.

There is no cost for a gravesite, headstone or marker in these cemeteries. Gravesites cannot be reserved in advance.

Contact: http://www.cem.va.gov or http://www.vba.va.gov/benefit_facts/index.htm.