Tennessee State Veterans Cemeteries

Tennessee operates state veterans cemeteries in Nashville, two sites in Knoxville, Memphis and Parkers Crossroads. Interment is at no fee and the state provides the plot, the opening and closing of the grave, a permanent upright white marble headstone with a temporary marker while it is made, and perpetual care. Eligibility was rewritten in 2026 and the new rule is materially wider than the old one. Public Chapter 839, passed April 13, 2026 and effective on becoming law, deleted 46-6-105 and substituted a two-route test. The first route is the federal one: an individual who meets the eligibility criteria set forth in 38 U.S.C. 2402, which is the standard for burial in a national cemetery. The second route is Tennessee's own and it is the reason the act was passed. A member of a reserve component of the armed forces, the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard is eligible if discharged or released under honorable conditions and either served honorably in a reserve component for not less than eight years collectively, or was called up on state orders irrespective of the length of time honorably served. Both halves of that matter. Eight years collectively means a member who moved between components, or served in broken periods, can add them up. And a Guard member called up on state orders qualifies on the call-up alone with no minimum service at all, which reaches the member activated for a flood or a tornado response and separated shortly afterward. For a person eligible under the state route, the eligibility of the spouse, surviving spouse, minor child and dependent incapacitated child is determined under 38 U.S.C. 2402 rather than under state law. The act also rewrote the fee section. Section 46-6-107 now provides that the department shall not charge a fee for the interment of a veteran eligible under the federal route, a reserve or Guard member eligible under the state route, the most recent spouse of either, or a minor child or dependent incapacitated child as determined under 46-6-105(a)(2). "The most recent spouse" is a deliberate and unusual phrase, and it settles which spouse the entitlement follows where there has been more than one. The documents the department must accept are listed rather than left to discretion: NGB Form 22, NGB Form 438 or 439, DD Form 214, DD Form 256, 256AF or 257, the most recent discharge orders issued by the service branch, and any other official document satisfying the requirements for proof of service and character of discharge under 38 CFR 3.203. A Guard member who has never held a DD214 is expressly covered. Two limits. A person is not eligible for interment or memorialization where it would be prohibited under 38 U.S.C. 2411, the capital crimes and sex offender bar. And the department is directed not to implement the section in any manner that jeopardizes federal funds for construction, expansion or operation of the cemeteries, which is the clause that will govern if the state route is ever read to conflict with a federal grant condition. Pre-registration is not required but is worth doing, because it settles eligibility while the veteran is alive rather than at the point a family is arranging a funeral.