The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee approved Sinema’s bill ensuring veterans in private cemeteries can honor their families on their gravestones
WASHINGTON – Today the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee passed Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s bipartisan Honoring Veterans’ Families Act with unanimous support. Sinema’s bill passed as part of a the Veterans Benefits Enhancement and Expansion Act, and will guarantee all veterans and their families have access to the burial benefits promised to them.
“Ensuring veterans buried in private cemeteries receive the same burial benefits as those buried in public cemeteries allows all Arizona veterans and their families to honor loved ones from their final resting places,” said Sinema, a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
Sinema’s bipartisan Honoring Veterans’ Families Act fixes a flaw that blocks the VA from putting the names of veterans’ family members on headstones in private cemeteries. Currently, the VA is only authorized to put veterans’ family members’ names on headstones in national, state veterans’, and tribal veterans’ cemeteries.
The committee-passed bill ensures all veterans who pass away on or after October 1, 2019 are able to have the Department of Veterans Affairs include information about deceased spouses and dependent children on headstones or grave markers, regardless of the type of cemetery in which they are located.
Sinema’s Honoring Veterans’ Families Act is supported by the American Legion, the Department of Veterans Affairs, AZ Department of Veterans’ Services, the Vietnam Veterans of America, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.