Massachusetts Veterans’ Memorial Cemeteries

Section 9A of chapter 115 was added by section 49 of the 2024 HERO Act and it is short enough to quote nearly in full. The Executive Office of Veterans Services shall operate, maintain and expand the Massachusetts Veterans' Memorial cemetery located in the city known as the town of Agawam and the Massachusetts Veterans' Memorial cemetery located in the town of Winchendon, and may add new cemetery locations, subject to the availability of funds, to meet veterans' and veteran dependents' needs. The office shall maintain the cemetery grounds, facilities and infrastructure and shall manage the burial and interment services, and may adopt additional rules, regulations and policies as necessary. Three observations for a family planning a burial. The statute creates a duty to expand as well as to operate. Massachusetts has two state cemeteries for a state of its population, one in the Connecticut River valley at Agawam and one in north central Massachusetts at Winchendon, and nothing in the eastern third of the commonwealth where most of the population lives. The express authority to add locations, and the duty to expand the two existing ones, are the legislature acknowledging that. A family in the Boston area should expect a considerable drive, and should also consider the federal national cemeteries at Bourne on Cape Cod, which is a separate system with separate eligibility administered by the National Cemetery Administration. Eligibility is not in the statute. Section 9A says nothing about who may be buried, what proof is required, whether there is a residency requirement, or what a plot costs. It leaves that to the rules, regulations and policies the office may adopt. This catalog will not invent those figures. A family should get them from the Executive Office of Veterans Services directly, and should ask specifically about the eligibility of a spouse and of dependent children, because that is where state cemetery rules most often differ from federal ones. The cemeteries are a state facility and not a federal one, which cuts both ways. Massachusetts sets the rules, so a veteran who is admissible here may not be admissible at a national cemetery and the reverse is also true. The federal burial allowance, the government headstone or marker, the burial flag and the Presidential Memorial Certificate are federal benefits that apply regardless of which cemetery is used, and a family should claim them separately. A veteran or family without means should read this entry together with the municipal burial duty in sections 7 and 8 of the same chapter, which is a different benefit with a different decision maker: the city or town's veterans' burial agent, who must arrange interment for a veteran who dies without sufficient means. The two provisions can operate together, with the municipality meeting the cost of a funeral and the state cemetery providing the grave. One drafting note that will confuse anyone searching the statute book. The phrase "the city known as the town of Agawam" is not an error. Agawam is a Massachusetts municipality that adopted a city form of government while retaining "town" in its name, and the statute is being precise rather than careless.