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Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Levinson Approves Expanded Guidelines for Veterans Cemetery Interment
County Executive Dennis Levinson recently accepted the recommendation of the Atlantic County Veterans Advisory Board to expand eligibility guidelines for interment at the Atlantic County Veterans Cemetery located at the Atlantic County Park in Estell Manor. The new guidelines are effective immediately.
Levinson had requested that the Veterans Advisory Board review the current guidelines in light of the county's plans to expand the Veterans Cemetery.
The previous guidelines limited eligibility to veterans of the United States Armed Forces (and their spouses) who served during certain periods of hostilities, as documented by separation papers. The new guidelines extend eligibility to veterans (and their spouses) who served during peacetime and were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable or undesirable; Merchant Marine veterans with service during World War II; veterans who served in a National Guard or Reserve component and earned full retirement benefits; and those who are disabled or die from wounds, accident or illness while performing their military duties.
The Veterans Advisory Board recommended that the eligibillity guidelines be revised to parallel the burial eligibillity policy in use at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' national cemeteries and the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery that is managed by the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
The Atlantic County Veterans Cemetery can presently accommodate nearly 5,200 graves. To date there are 2,414 interments and another 1,056 are reserved. Over the past five years the cemetery has averaged 253 burials a year.
For more information, please contact George Flicker, Atlantic County Veterans Interment Officer, at (609) 625-1897 or visit www.aclink.org/Parks.
Click here for more information.
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