Wisconsin Veterans Cemeteries and Military Funeral Honors

Section 45.61 authorises the Wisconsin veterans cemeteries. Three operate: the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Union Grove, the Central Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery at King, and the Northern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Spooner. Eligibility follows the federal standard used for VA national cemeteries rather than a separate state test. That reaches a veteran discharged under conditions other than dishonorable, a member who died on active duty, a reserve or Guard member with twenty years qualifying for retired pay, and the spouse and dependent children of an eligible person. Interment of the veteran is at no cost. A fee is charged for the interment of an eligible spouse or dependent, which is the ordinary pattern for state cemeteries operated with VA construction grants. The cemeteries provide the grave, the opening and closing, a government headstone or marker with installation, and perpetual care. Pre-registration is available and is worth doing, because it settles eligibility while the veteran is alive rather than leaving a family to establish it during a funeral. Section 45.60 is the provision with less obvious value and more practical use. It authorises a military funeral honors programme. Federal law entitles an eligible veteran's family to a funeral honors detail of at least two uniformed members, one from the veteran's parent service, who fold and present the flag and sound Taps. The constraint in practice is supply: active duty and reserve details are limited, and rural funerals at short notice are where the system fails. Wisconsin's programme fills that gap, drawing on the Wisconsin National Guard and on volunteer veterans service organisation honor guards, and paying a stipend for participation. 2025 Wisconsin Act 206, enacted April 8, 2026, doubled the reimbursement to an honor guard unit from $50 to $100 a funeral and added the Hmong and Lao veterans of 45.01(12)(k) to the people honors may be provided for. A family that has been told no federal detail is available should ask the funeral director to contact the state programme rather than accepting that nothing is available. Section 45.62 requires burial places of veterans to be compiled, which is the statutory basis for the record of where Wisconsin veterans are buried and is of use to families researching a grave. None of these provisions carries a disability rating test, and none requires Wisconsin residency in the way the homes' priority rules do, though the cemeteries are state facilities and the honors programme is a state resource. Two related things sit outside chapter 45. Section 45.05 provides for free registration of a certificate of discharge with the register of deeds, which is the document a family needs at the point of a funeral. And the federal burial allowance, plot allowance and headstone or marker are separate VA benefits that a family can claim alongside anything the state provides.