Burial for a Veteran in American Samoa

The National Cemetery Administration's list of VA grant-funded cemeteries includes the Guam Veterans Cemetery in Piti and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Veterans Cemetery on Saipan. American Samoa is not on it, and there is no VA national cemetery in the territory either. A veteran who dies in American Samoa is buried in a family or village cemetery, as almost everyone here is. That changes which benefits are available, and it is worth being precise about what survives. What does not apply, because there is no facility: a free grave site or niche, opening and closing of the grave, a burial vault or pre-set crypt, perpetual care, and the government headstone that comes automatically with a national cemetery interment. Those are cemetery benefits and they need a cemetery. What still applies, because these follow the veteran rather than the ground: A government headstone or marker, or a medallion to affix to a privately purchased headstone, furnished by VA for the grave of an eligible veteran in a private cemetery. This is the main one and it is often missed by families who assume the absence of a veterans cemetery means the absence of anything. A United States burial flag to drape the casket or accompany the urn, given afterward to the next of kin. A Presidential Memorial Certificate, signed by the President, for the next of kin and others. Military funeral honors on request, which the funeral director arranges. In American Samoa the Army Reserve presence and the local veterans organisations are the practical source of a detail. VA burial allowances toward burial and funeral costs and, where eligible, a plot or interment allowance and transportation costs. The amounts and the eligibility categories, which differ sharply between a service-connected death and a non-service-connected death, are set federally and change; check the current VA figures rather than any number you have been told. Dependency and Indemnity Compensation for a surviving spouse, child, or parent where the death was service-connected or the veteran met the rating and duration tests, is the larger survivor benefit and is federal. It has no American Samoa variation. The American Samoa Government Office of Veterans and Military Affairs states that helping families with funeral arrangements for veterans is one of its core services, and it is the office to call first. The catalog records no territorial burial allowance, plot benefit, or funeral payment in American Samoa law; the veterans title that would contain one does not exist. One piece of history that is not a benefit. Satala Cemetery was established by the United States Navy in the late nineteenth century, and the territory holds Memorial Day observances there and at the Veterans Memorial Center in Tafuna, where a Wall of Honor to American Samoans killed in service was unveiled in May 2025. It is a place of commemoration, not a veterans cemetery with eligibility rules. If a territorial veterans cemetery is something you want, the route exists: the VA Veterans Cemetery Grants Program is open to territorial governments, VA can fund up to the full development cost of an approved project and provide operating equipment for a new cemetery, and it cannot pay for the land. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands both went through it.