CNMI Veterans Cemetery

The Commonwealth has a veterans cemetery and American Samoa does not, which is the single largest practical difference between the two territories that lack a National Guard. It is at Marpi on Saipan, on public land designated Lot No. 053 A 27, established by 1 CMC § 20126. It exists because of a federal grant. The legislative findings behind Public Law 18-10 record that the Commonwealth received a Veterans Cemetery Construction Project Grant of $1,666,980 from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in August 2005, construction began that September, and Public Law 17-61 then formally established the cemetery under the Office of Military Liaison and Veteran Affairs. It is a VA Veterans Cemetery Grants Program cemetery, not a VA national cemetery, and the National Cemetery Administration lists it among grant-funded cemeteries alongside the Guam Veterans Cemetery. The cost rule is at 1 CMC § 20128. Any eligible person or veteran of the United States Armed Forces shall be buried without charge. For eligible spouses and dependents the executive officer sets a fee schedule that covers, as nearly as practicable, the actual costs of interment or inurnment, expressly excluding the value of the plot. So the ground is free for the family too; what they pay for is the work. Eligibility under 1 CMC § 20127 turns on a Commonwealth connection that a veteran arriving from elsewhere should read carefully. A former or current member of the armed forces qualifies if they were born in the Commonwealth, or were a resident of the CNMI at entrance to or separation from the armed forces, or were a resident of the CNMI for two consecutive years, and then meet one of the service tests: died on active duty; served as an active member and was honorably discharged or released under honorable conditions; served in an allied government's forces during a war while a U.S. citizen; or served in a reserve component, the Army or Air National Guard, or ROTC and died under honorable conditions on active duty for training or full-time service, or while hospitalized or being treated for a service-related condition. Reservists and Guard members, and their spouses and dependent children, are eligible if they were entitled to retired pay at death or would have been at sixty. The family list is generous and specific. It reaches a spouse, widow or widower, including of a member lost or buried at sea or determined permanently absent in a missing status; a surviving spouse whose remarriage was annulled or declared void; unmarried minor children under twenty-one, or under twenty-three if pursuing a course of instruction at an approved educational institution; and adult children declared physically or mentally disabled and incapable of self-support before turning twenty-one, on written documentation such as medical records or a letter from an attending physician. Remains of eligible people already buried elsewhere may be reinterred. Two operational points. Under 1 CMC § 20131 the office's rules must conform to the operational standards and measures of the National Cemetery Administration, and, notwithstanding that, may not restrict a vigil, religious service, or other expression of views or grievances at the outside pavilion or graveside. Under 1 CMC § 20129 the cemetery runs on a revolving fund that takes fees, donations and contributions and spends them on maintenance without legislative appropriation, and the fees collected for veteran vehicle license plates under Public Law 14-16 are deposited into that same fund. Buying a veteran plate maintains the cemetery. Rota and Tinian are the unfinished part. Sections 20132 and 20133 direct the Department of Public Lands to designate one hectare of feasible public land on each island as the future site of a veterans cemetery, and § 20126(b) authorizes the Commonwealth to establish, own, operate and maintain them so the veterans office can apply for a grant. Those are designations and authorities from 2011 and 2013. Confirm with the Office of Military Liaison and Veteran Affairs whether either has been built before planning a burial on Rota or Tinian. Federal burial benefits sit on top of this and are not replaced by it: a government headstone or marker, a burial flag, a Presidential Memorial Certificate, military funeral honors, and VA burial allowances.