National Cemetery Administration
Fort Sheridan Post Cemetery transferred to VA
December 13, 2019
WASHINGTON – Beginning today, the VA's National Cemetery Administration (NCA) will operate and maintain the post cemetery at Ft. Sheridan, Illinois.
Fort Sheridan National Cemetery, as it will now be called, was transferred to NCA by the Department of the Army in fulfillment of President Trump's Executive Order 13781 – "Executive Order on a Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch," signed March 13, 2017 and the VA's own Agency Reform plan.
"The National Cemetery Administration is proud to welcome Ft. Sheridan National Cemetery as VA's 140th national cemetery," said Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Randy Reeves. "We have always considered it our sacred duty to provide our Veterans perpetual care in cemeteries that are national shrines.
Starting now, the VA's eligibility criteria for burial will apply at Ft. Sheridan National Cemetery. VA criteria are more expansive than the Army's and will allow more Veterans and their loved ones to be memorialized at the national shrine. In order to provide access while maximizing limited acreage, new interments at the cemetery will be limited to in-ground burial of cremated remains. Casketed burials will be permitted as subsequent interments in existing gravesites for eligible family members. For those Veterans and families in the area that desire casketed interment or inurnment in a columbarium, Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois, remains the Chicago area's full-service national cemetery.
Fort Sheridan served as an active Army post from 1887 – 1993. The cemetery, which was established in 1889, contains 2,354 occupied gravesites. The cemetery will be administered by Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois.
The Army and the NCA are continuing to plan for the transfer of additional Army cemeteries in coming months. Ft. Lawton Post Cemetery in Seattle and Ft. Missoula Post Cemetery in Missoula, Montana, were transferred to NCA in June and October 2019. Eight more cemeteries will be transferred to NCA through 2020. These include the post cemeteries at Vancouver Barracks, Washington; Ft. Douglas, Utah; Ft. McClellan, Alabama; Ft. Worden, Washington; Ft. Stevens, Oregon; Ft. Devens, Massachusetts; Benicia Arsenal, California; and the Enemy Prisoner of War Cemetery located at Ft. McClellan, Alabama.
For more information about Ft. Sheridan National Cemetery, contact Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery Director Quincy McCall at (815) 423-9958. To make burial arrangements at Fort Sheridan National Cemetery, or at any VA national cemetery, call the National Cemetery Scheduling Office at (800) 535-1117. For more information about the transfer of other Army Cemeteries, contact NCA Public Affairs at (202) 632-8035.
