Yes, thank you, Chairman, and thank you committee members for the opportunity to present the goals of the national cemetery administration.
We are the smallest of the three within the Department of Veterans Affairs, yet our mission is an extremely important one. We maintain and provide dignified burial space for veterans and their dependants, and we maintain our cemeteries as national shrines.
We also administer the federal grants program, which helps states develop state-run veterans cemeteries. We actually pay 100% of the cost to develop the cemetery. They just need to own the land.
We're also responsible for headstones and markers that we ship all over the world to private cemeteries and also to all the national cemeteries that are federally administered as well as state cemeteries.
We also administer the Presidential Memorial Certificate. Any veteran with an honourable discharge can and will receive a Presidential Memorial Certificate. We normally send it out if they've been buried at a national cemetery or if they requested a headstone or a marker in a private cemetery. The program also allows that if the family members would like to have more, they can request it. It's a certificate that has the President's signature embossed on it.
We have 125 national cemeteries throughout the United States and including Puerto Rico. We have five memorial service network offices that administer these cemeteries and provide them financial support and guidance as they operate the cemeteries.
In 2007 we conducted over 100,000 burials of veterans and their dependants in our national cemeteries. We have 1,600 employees who manage these cemeteries, and we maintain 2.8 million gravesites. One thing that's unique about national cemetery administration is that 70% of our employees are veterans. We actually have a higher percentage of veterans than any other federal agency, including DOD. They're at 34% veterans, and the VA as a whole is at 33% veterans. We're proud that most of our employees--at least 70% of them--are veterans who have served this nation.
Regarding burial in a national cemetery, there is a long list of eligibility. I'll just go over some short ones really quickly. Anyone who served in the armed forces of the United States and died on active duty or was discharged from the military, for any reason other than dishonourable, may be eligible for burial in a national cemetery--to include their dependants.
Any National Guard member or reservist who has served 20 years and is eligible for retirement from the National Guard or reserves and has reached the age of 60 would be eligible. Spouses and minor children are eligible. The term “children” refers to anyone under the age of 21 unless they are going to an accredited college, in which case it goes up to the age of 23 or if they become physically or mentally disabled prior to reaching the age of 21, in which case they would become adult dependant children and would be eligible for burial in our national cemeteries.
The responsibilities we have are to provide gravesites, open and close the grave, provide an outside container--what we call a grave liner, which is normally concrete--headstones and markers, perpetual care, a U.S. flag that drapes the casket at the time of the veteran being brought to the cemetery for the service, and the Presidential Memorial Certificate.
Unfortunately, you don't have the pictures, but hopefully you'll get some pictures of the headstones that we provide and the Presidential Memorial Certificate that we also provide. We have marble, granite, or bronze headstones that we provide at the national cemeteries and in private cemeteries. Last year we provided over 360,000 headstones throughout the world and over 420,000 Presidential Memorial Certificates.
The median age of the World War II veteran is 84. We have over 16 million who participated. In Korea there were five million-plus, and their median age is 77. In Vietnam it was eight million, with a median age of 61. Currently there are five million who have served in the Gulf War, with a median age of 38.
The death rate for our population from World War II is dropping off, but from Korea and Vietnam it's picking up, and our workload actually peaked this year in terms of our burial rate. It has not and will not drop off fast. It's dropping off slowly, and then it will increase because of what we call second interments. Once there's an individual buried there, either the veteran or the spouse can come at their time of need.
As to our strategy for the future, we're developing new cemeteries. We've recently opened six new cemeteries, and we are in the planning and construction stage of opening six more throughout the United States. We're expanding our existing cemeteries. Our goal is to continue to have services at national cemeteries, so we'll try to find land, whether we buy it or it gets donated or transferred from DOD, to keep our existing cemeteries open.
Right now, the six new cemeteries that are in the construction phase and planning phase are at Bakersfield, California; Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania; the District of Columbia area; Alabama; Jacksonville, Florida; and this Sunday we're going to dedicate a cemetery in Sarasota, Florida, which will be our 126th cemetery to come online.
With the straight grant program, as I said before, we pay 100% of the cost to develop the cemetery, from designing it to building it to providing the equipment. The states then hire the employees and run the cemetery. As it needs expansion, we help them expand it by spending the dollars in funding so that they can pay for the construction. Since 1980 we've spent over $300 million in 162 grants to states to develop state cemeteries. Our goal is to maintain the cemeteries as shrines to commemorate veterans' service to our country.
Thank you.