Sam Brown, head of the National Cemetery Administration, delivers his priorities and asks for continued American Legion partnership during Washington Conference.
Standing in front of members of The American Legion Family during the annual Washington Conference, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs had both praise and a couple of asks for those in attendance.
Samuel Brown, who was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate on July 30, 2025, is charged with overseeing the National Cemetery Administration (NCA), which is responsible for the operation and maintenance of 157 VA national cemeteries, and the delivery of memorial products such as headstones, markers, medallions, and Presidential Memorial Certificates.
Brown said in order for his staff to do its job, it relies on the help of veteran service organizations to assist in those efforts.
“A big part of us delivering our mission is partnerships like with The American Legion,” he said. “We couldn’t do what we do without communities … showing up at our cemeteries to help deliver those final honors. Don’t underestimate the importance of our collective mission and the partnership that we have to ensure that these veterans and their families receive that final honor with all the care that they deserve.”
The partnership is working. “Not only do we never have an opportunity to make a second mission, we cannot fail on our mission,” Brown said. “But what we see from that is NCA is known not only being the largest percent of workforce of veterans in the government, but also having the No. 1 rank for customer satisfaction.
“We take this evaluation every three years, and we’ve led every year for over 20 years. We just got our results back (in January) that NCA scored an all-time high of 98 percent for customer satisfaction. That doesn’t come from just doing a good job. That comes from a passion and a commitment to the mission.”
Brown graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 2006 and qualified as an Airborne Ranger and led soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division in combat operations during Operation Enduring Freedom in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2008. During his deployment there he was severely wounded, resulting in his medical retirement at the rank of captain. During his service the awards he earned included both the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
He said his current position feels somewhat like being back in the Army. “But my unit is much bigger than that platoon I left in Afghanistan. The NCA is made up of about 2,200 full-time folks. A team that is dedicated to this mission. We’ve got people who have been at NCA for 35-40 years.
“Outside of the Department of War, we have the highest percentage of veterans working at the National Cemetery Administration than anywhere. About 65 percent of folks at NCA are veterans. I know that’s something that you all can appreciate.”
Brown laid out his top three priorities as the head of the NCA. One of those includes continuing to bring awareness of the benefits veterans have earned. “It was shocking to me as I came onto this role to learn that only 18 percent of veterans who are eligible choose to be interred in national cemeteries,” he said. “So we have an awareness gap here. And this is where groups like the Legion come in and can help us carry that message.”
Brown said NCA launched a national ad campaign last year to raise that awareness, the first time the administration had done so. “One of the things that we’re driving toward as part of our awareness campaign is make sure that people know that they’re eligible and to give their families some sense of preparedness.”
One way to do that, Brown said, was for veterans to apply for pre-need burial eligibility to determine and his spouse is eligible for burial in a VA national cemetery. “When we pass, we want to make it as simple and easy as possible,” he said. “What pre-need eligibility does is it allows us to basically validate, ‘Yep, you’re eligible.’ So when that time comes, no one’s looking for dad’s or mom’s or granddad’s DD214. There’s so much stress and turmoil. We don’t need families to worry about that.”
Another of Brown’s priorities is access.
“We have a goal at NCA to be able to provide access within 75 miles to 95 percent of eligible veterans,” he said. “We’ve gotten very close to this goal. We’re at 94.18 percent of veterans served. We’ve gotten to that point with 157 national cemeteries and 124 state veteran cemeteries. We also have some territorial and tribal cemeteries as well.”
One initiative to help reach that goal is the Rural Initiative. “There are rural parts of the country … that don’t have big veteran populations nearby that, frankly, need a cemetery,” Brown said. “They’re often not very large, but they are a national cemetery that helps us to get close to that 95-percent threshold. We set out to build eight of them. I’m happy to tell you that seven have been completed. The eighth one is currently under construction.”
Modernization is Brown’s third priority. As an example, he said one of NCA’s systems launched in 1992 and still uses MS-DOS. “We have a very real need to modernize our technology systems,” he said. “It’s the backbone of how we schedule for services. It’s how we keep accountability of who’s buried where. This is one of my largest priorities … making sure we’re able to upgrade this system to something that’s modern, something that is scalable, something that we can build on for decades to come.”
Brown urged Legionnaires to spread the word about NCA’s Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM), the nation's largest digital platform dedicated to the memory of more than 10 million veterans and servicemembers interred in VA's national cemeteries; VA-funded state, tribal, and territory Veteran cemeteries; military-managed cemeteries; American Battle Monument Commission cemeteries; National Park Service cemeteries; and private cemeteries within and outside the United States.
Individual veteran profile pages are populated with military service and cemetery information. Publicly available information gathered from VA records includes service branch and seal, dates of birth and death, rank, war period, decorations, emblem of belief, and cemetery information. VLM’s interactive features allow family, friends and the public to submit tributes, images, biographical information, and historical documents; create their veteran's military service and personal achievements timeline; and generate a word cloud that describes their veteran.
“I’m impressed how many folks were aware of it here,” Young said to Legion Family members in the audience. “But there’s a lot of people that don’t know about it. I think it’s a really incredible feature.”
In asking the Legion to continue its partnership with NCA, Brown pointed to American Legion Resolution No. 23, passed during the 2025 Fall Meetings. The resolution “encourages its membership to volunteer at national cemeteries through either a VA Voluntary Services or Center for Development & Civic Engagement program or by joining a private cemetery support committee at the nearest national cemetery or state veteran cemetery.” It also calls for working with other organizations in tandem for the same cause.
He shared a couple of ways to follow the resolution. One is joining an honor guard, while another is taking part in the NCA’s 9/11 Day of Remembrance. On that day, NCA hosts National Day of Service events at over 60 VA national cemeteries.
“We just think it’s important that the community remembers the sacrifice of veterans multiple times a year,” Brown said. “This year it falls on Saturday, Sept. 12. It’s the 25th anniversary of 9/11. We’ll be publishing and disseminating information about this and how you can get engaged.”
Brown called NCA’s mission “a sacred duty. It’s an honor to be able to lead the organization on our mission to make sure we memorialize our nation’s heroes, and we ensure their final place to rest is maintained as a shrine – which they deserve – and to remember their legacy forever.”
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