Funeral and Burial Benefits for Service Members

The Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs ensure that service members who die on active duty receive recognition and dignified burial services. The departments also offer help for their survivors. In general, any honorably discharged service member is eligible to receive DOD or VA funeral and burial benefits. A dishonorable discharge makes a service member ineligible for those benefits. It is Defense Department policy that all service members’ remains are handled with dignity, honor and respect.

Mortuary services provided for active-duty deaths include:

• Recovery, evacuation, transportation and identification of remains.
• Return of personal effects. A legal representative of the service member’s estate is entitled to the personal effects. If no such person is identified, the primary next of kin is entitled to them and decides where they will be shipped or stored.
• Preparation and casketing of the service member.
• Transport of the deceased service member’s remains to the burial site.
• Transport of immediate family members to the burial site.
• When eligible, burial in a gravesite in a national or private cemetery (dependent on available space). Cremated remains are buried or placed into urns in cemeteries in the same manner and with the same honors as casketed remains.

Below is a list of services designed to help survivors if their active-duty service member dies.

Your loved one’s sacrifice will never be forgotten. This video, which includes a poem titled “A Hero’s Grace,” honors their sacrifice and faithful service. It also provides an overview for funeral planners of military funeral honors elements.