inurnment

Arlington National Cemetery is proposing new rules that would eliminate burial and inurnment eligibility for service members who die on active duty but not in combat, ending a custom that goes back to the cemetery’s founding in 1864.

World War II-era veterans would still be eligible for inurnment.

The new rules also would exclude the current inurnment eligibility for members of the reserves, Army National Guard or Air National Guard who suffer non-combat deaths on active duty.

And they would not include blanket inurnment eligibility for many former members of the armed forces, which would seem to eliminate numerous veterans who served during the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

They would be eligible, though, for above-ground “inurnment” of cremated remains.