WASHINGTON — Families hoping to bury their loved ones at Arlington National Cemetery are waiting longer and longer to do it.
A Ft. Myers News-Press analysis finds that while the average wait between a request for interment and the actual burial was just 4.5 days in February 1980, in February 2013, the wait was 174.3 days.
Arlington National Cemetery acknowledges that the wait can be around six months now, especially for families who want to have the funeral service at the cemetery along with military honors.
The cemetery now gets more requests for services each week than the number it can accommodate, creating a potentially snowballing backlog.
The wait can also mean bills for the family, as some funeral homes charge by the day for keeping the remains until burial.
The funerals of active duty service members get preference, with those killed in action going to the top of the list.
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