Veterans Affairs committee  No. In a national cemetery, we provide the burial space, the outer container, and we also assist with honours, and chaplains and ministers. At the private cemetery, we basically provide a headstone for the eligible veteran. We don't put the spouse's name on it, but we do leave

Veterans Affairs committee  There's one thing that might help, if I could add to that. The veterans organizations and the VA medical centre partner with Stand Downs to help bring in the vets, and we also participate. It helps those veterans with PTSD to be able to go to someone for help to fill out the appl

Veterans Affairs committee  Depending on where you'll be in New York, if you're going to be near the city, Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island is our third-busiest cemetery. They buried 6,000 last year. They have both upright marble and flat bronze markers there. Then we have Cypress Hills, which is

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. We have Elmira in the Buffalo area. Out on the cape we have Bourne, which is a Massachusetts national cemetery, and it has flat granite markers.

Veterans Affairs committee  You can find them online under www.cem.va.gov; there you can get the addresses to locate those cemeteries.

Veterans Affairs committee  That dates back to President Kennedy. He developed the Presidential Memorial Certificate, and every president has carried it since then. We provide it to any veteran who has had an honourable discharge. There are two ways they can get it. When they order a headstone we automati

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll go ahead and start. I think that for us, the biggest gap is getting to all the veterans. Of all the veterans there are, we serve about 15% of the veteran population, which means that a lot of veterans who die are being buried in a private cemetery, and it is costly to them.

Veterans Affairs committee  And one thing with us at the national cemetery administration is that the veterans organizations are our eyes and ears out there in the field and in the cities, where we don't have a cemetery to get the word out. Also, where we do have cemeteries, many of our cemeteries have gr

Veterans Affairs committee  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