With November marking National Veteran and Military Families Month, highlighted by Veterans Day on November 11, now would be the perfect time to honor those who have served and sacrificed for their country.
One can do so by visiting and contributing to the Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM). This digital platform, run by VA’s National Cemetery Administration, is dedicated to the memory of nearly 4.5 million Veterans interred at VA’s national cemeteries, VA’s grant-funded tribal, state and territory cemeteries, and two U.S. National Park Service cemeteries. Other cemeteries, including the U.S. Army’s Arlington National Cemetery, are currently not part of the Veterans Legacy Memorial.
VLM honors those who served
The memorial’s interactive features allow people to remember Veterans by posting tributes and comments, uploading images and sharing a Veteran’s military service timeline, achievements, biographical information, historical documents and more.
More than 45,000 submissions have been made to the Veterans’ existing profile pages in VLM since the site was launched in 2019. VA’s National Cemetery Administration (NCA) moderators review all content submitted to the memorial before it’s posted to a Veteran’s page to ensure that it conforms to the VLM user policy and appropriately honors Veterans.
Recently, the National Park Service became the first federal agency to collaborate with NCA on expanding the Veterans Legacy Memorial. The two agencies added profiles for 20,574 Veterans and service members interred at two National Park Service cemeteries to the VLM web site.
The new profile pages memorialize 18,752 Veterans and service members interred at Andersonville National Cemetery in Andersonville, Georgia, as well as 1,822 interred at Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville, Tennessee. The pages can now be accessed by family, friends and the public interested in memorializing these Veterans and sharing lasting memories, tributes, photos, biographies and other information to honor their service to the nation.
“The National Cemetery Administration is proud to partner with the National Park Service in honoring the Veterans and service members interred in the [park service’s] national cemeteries,” VA Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Matthew Quinn said. “As VLM grows, we look forward to the day when all Veterans can be memorialized online, regardless of where they are laid to rest.”
Click here to find a Veteran listed on the Veterans Legacy Memorial.
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