How to Apply for a Veterans Affairs Grave Marker

USCT soldier Thornton Rumsey was a recipient of a new grave marker. Rumsey is buried at Old Greenville Cemetery in Kentucky.

If you do genealogy and visit cemeteries long enough, it’s bound to happen–you’ll spot an American veteran whose grave marker is broken or illegible. This happened to me multiple times, and many of these service members were my ancestors. I felt hopeless, not sure, as a teenager and later a college student, how I could ever purchase dozens of new grave markers for veterans.

Luckily, I didn’t have have to…and you don’t, either! After researching veteran grave markers several years ago, I discovered that Veterans Affairs (VA) has a program that allows veterans to have new, legible grave markers, at no cost to the applicant. After securing 16 grave markers, I’m happy to share a step-by-step guide on how to fill out your application. The PowerPoint below will provide examples that can make filling out VA Form 40-1330 easy and stress-free! To view this information, download the PowerPoint below. In order to learn more about the application in-depth, click on the megaphone that is on each slide and press play.