Want to be Buried in Arlington National Cemetery? It's Not Easy

In terms of desirable real estate, Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac from D.C., is some of the country’s most restricted and exclusive property. People don’t want to live there, though -- they want to reside there underground forever after they die -- but getting your own plot won’t be easy.

Arlington National Cemetery was established in 1864 under contentious circumstances. The land had been acquired in 1802 by George Washington Parke Custis, the step-grandson and adopted son of George Washington. Custis had inherited a substantial fortune from his father, as well as a plantation along the Potomac that would become Arlington, Virginia. On this property, Custis built a mansion, Arlington House, named after a village of the same name in Gloucestershire, England, where his family came from.

Things got sticky during the Civil War, though. By the time the war broke out, Custis’ daughter, Mary Anna, had inherited the Arlington property and married Robert E. Lee. To prevent Confederate forces from occupying Arlington, Union forces confiscated the property from Lee in 1864 without resistance, an action which would be deemed illegal in 1882 by the Supreme Court in United States v. Lee. After ownership reverted to Custis Lee, the son of Robert E. and Mary Anna, Lee sold the land back to the U.S. in 1883 for an amount of just over $3 million in today’s dollar value.

The eligibility requirements for getting a place at Arlington have been established by Part 553 of Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The requirements begin with the stipulation that you or your spouse must be a member of the armed forces, either in active duty or a veteran, or that you’re a minor or dependent child of one. If you meet this basic requirement, you’re eligible for above-ground inurnment in the columbarium, but if you want in-ground interment, the requirements just get more strict from there. According to the official Arlington National Cemetery website, “Eligibility for in-ground burial at Arlington National Cemetery is the most stringent of all U.S. national cemeteries.”

Making things more difficult, you can’t apply until you’re dead, meaning that, technically, someone else must go through the application process for you. If you do get in, the average wait time for burial can reach six months, compared to the wait time of a few days at most other cemeteries. That’s because of high demand and a massive space crunch -- the cemetery is nearing maximum capacity. To deal with the limited space, officials are considering further restricting burials to only those service members who were killed in action or were awarded the Medal of Honor.

As mentioned, the main qualification for eligibility for Arlington burial is that you’re an active service member or a veteran (or the spouse or minor child of one), but that’s just the start. If you’re a veteran, then you already know how difficult it can be to meet eligibility requirements for SSDI, such as determining your rating using a VA disability calculator. But compared to the strict requirements to get into Arlington, getting SSDI is a breeze.