Posted December 12, 2011

NFDA was recently notified of several procedural and process changes at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC). Please take note of these and, if you have any questions, contact Arlington National Cemetery's Customer Service Call Center at 877-907-8585.

Death Certificate Required: While ANC has already started asking for a copy of the decedent's death certificate, as of January 1, 2012 a copy of the death certificate will be mandatory.

Cremation Certificate Required: ANC continues to require a cremation certificate for all cremated remains brought to the cemetery for inurnment or interment.

Receipt of Remains: As of January 1, 2012, in order to establish the chain of custody for casketed remains, the agent of the licensed funeral service provider (funeral home or surface transportation service) will be required to sign a statement identifying the remains and transferring custody to ANC.

Shorter Waiting Period for Call Back: When a family or a funeral director calls ANC to schedule a funeral the caller is given a case number. ANC calls families and funeral directors in the same sequence as their case number. When this system was implemented, it took 2-3 weeks to get a return call from ANC to schedule a funeral. Now, funeral homes are being called back within 2-3 days and families are called back within a week.

Saturday Funerals: ANC is scheduling Saturday funerals only for cremated remains when no military support required. That means a family that would like to inurn cremated remains in the columbarium would have to supply their religious support and hand carry the remains themselves. ANC is also scheduling in ground burial of cremated remains on Saturday. There is usually no waiting period for a Saturday funeral.

Urn Liners: ANC provides a concrete urn liner to all families that have elected in ground burial of an urn. The concrete urn liner will virtually eliminate the risk of an urn being separated from its grave or of cremated remains being misidentified.