WASHINGTON - Arlington National Cemetery is running out of space.
Decisions about how to parcel dwindling room next to the final resting places of astronauts, Supreme Court justices, Presidents John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft, and 4 million others, is angering the families of some veterans, like that of Elaine Harmon.
A member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, Harmon in her will asked for her ashes to be placed at Arlington, the nation's most famous cemetery, next toothers who served during World War II.
But in trying to stave off the day when it can no longer let veterans into the cemetery, the U.S. Army tightened its practices. It decided last year -- shortly before Harmon's death in May -- not to allow any more of the roughly 1,000 women who flew non-combat missions with the WASPs.
This week, Harmon's ashes still waited in an urn in her granddaughter’s closet in Silver Spring, Maryland, as her family continued pushing the Army and Congress to honor her final wishes.
On Tuesday, the House unanimously passed a bill ordering her remains - and those of the remaining pioneering aviators - into the cemetery.
Speaking on the House floor, Rep. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, the first woman fighter pilot to fly in combat for the U.S. Air Force, called the WASPs "personal mentors."
Allowing "these amazing women and pioneers to be laid to rest in a place of honor and a place for the most hallowed," she said, "is the right thing to do."
Cemetery spokeswoman Jennifer Lynch said the Army, which manages the cemetery, doesn't oppose the move. Still, the fact remains, there's only so much space. With about 150 veterans buried or inurned at the cemetery every week, it will be full in about 20 years.
More difficult decisions are likely over which of the country's veterans deserve a place in its most famous cemetery.
Lynch confirmed that Arlington's advisory committee is starting to come up with a plan to deal with shrinking amount of space.
An option is to expand the cemetery into empty adjacent land to the south already owned by the Army. Another is to further tighten what are already the most stringent standards of any national cemetery.
“We’re the nation’s most hallowed ground. We’re looking at ways to extend its working life as a cemetery,” Lynch said.
Excluding veterans, of course, leads to controversy over whom should be allowed to rest at Arlington.
Harmon wanted to be there. She thought that she and other WASPs - who flew such missions as delivering new airplanes from factories to military bases, freeing male pilots for combat - deserved to be honored.
“She was extremely proud of her service,” said her granddaughter, Erin Miller, in an interview.
Miller recalled how her grandmother dressed as Uncle Sam each Fourth of July. She'd wear a WASP uniform to schools to talk about the pioneering pilots.
Several family members are buried the cemetery, including Harmon's aunt, Helen Oliphant, who served as a yeoman in the U.S. Navy during World War I.
Harmon also wanted the memory of the WASPs to be kept alive through visitors to the cemetery.
The Army’s eligibility standards last year also angered the family of National Guard Staff Sgt. Thomas Florich. He was one of four guardsmen and seven Marines killed in March 2015 when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the Gulf of Mexico.
Florich was eligible to be inurned at the cemetery but was initially denied burial because he died in a training exercise and was not considered to be on active duty. Army Secretary John McHugh granted an exemption after Florich’s family protested.
In a statement, the cemetery said the WASPs' service is "highly commendable" and "worthy of recognition" but noted they were not considered to have served in active duty.
The cemetery has tighter regulations for those who are buried, compared with those whose ashes are inurned.
Generally speaking, those eligible for burial died while on active duty; received a Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Services Medal or Purple Heart; or were prisoners of war who served honorably. Those who died in training, or who served in the reserves or National Guard, can be inured but do not qualify for the more scarce burial spots.
The women aviators have never been buried in Arlington. However, the cemetery said it had mistakenly allowed their ashes to be inurned because of confusion over a 1977 law that granted them veteran status, but only for benefits administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The law gave the women rights to veterans benefits, including burials and inurnments at national cemeteries.
In a review of its policies last year, the Army stopped accepting the women's remains, saying it should not have allowed them there in the first place. They were only considered to have been active duty for the purposes of the VA, but that didn't qualify them for burial in Arlington.
A version of the House bill that passed Tuesday has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.
Miller said she realizes that allowing her grandmother and other WASPs to be buried at Arlington could mean leaving out others in the future.
“There’s limited space. But to deny the WASPs is saying that people who serve now are worthier than people who served 70 years ago,” she said.
Kery Murakami is the Washington, D.C. reporter for CNHI's newspapers and websites. Reach him at kmurakami@cnhi.com
