Army finally finalizes plans for Arlington Expansion Land

For several years now the U.S. Army, operators of Arlington National Cemetery, have planned for an expansion to the south but had not really figured out how they were going to get the land to do so.  It was thought that they would probably do some type of land swap with Arlington County, Virginia, and eventually get it figured out.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Army announced, according to an article in the Army Times, that they will be purchasing five acres from Arlington County and 7 acres from the state of Virginia for this expansion.  This land, located on the cemetery’s southern border has been known as the Navy Annex.

According to the article this purchase will allow Arlington National the room for another 40,000 to 60,000 cemetery spaces and extend the life span of interments past the year 2050.

Arlington National Cemetery today holds the remains of over 400,000 men and women of honor and conducts about 30 interments per day.

Funeral Director Daily take:  This is good news.  Our take is that the men and women of this country who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their nation deserve nothing less.  They are revered in my opinion.

During my funeral service career in Minnesota, I had the privilege to serve families of active members of the military who died either in action or training five times.  I still get shivers thinking of those services.  Oddly enough, just Saturday at a high school graduation open house in my community I had the opportunity to visit with a Gold Star Mom and Dad of which I conducted the services of their son who was in the Air Force and died in a rescue training mission.  It has been over twenty years since this happened but we laughed and got teary eyed once again over the memories.  Those times of helping those types of families will live with me forever.  It is why I enjoyed being on the front lines of funeral service.[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]

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