VA approves request by Oregon woman to bury same-sex spouse

In a first, VA approves request by Oregon woman to bury same-sex spouse in national cemetery
By Mike Francis
The Oregonian
on February 14, 2013

Nancy Lynchild's grave at Willamette National Cemetery, when it is dug, will seal a marriage while setting a national first. And it will provide a public expression of a life that retired Air Force Lt. Col. Linda Campbell once had to live in secret.

The burial of Lynchild's ashes at the military cemetery will be the nation's first of a veteran's same-sex spouse. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which administers national cemeteries, personally approved a waiver of VA policy to permit the burial.

Lynchild died of cancer in Eugene three days before Christmas.

Shinseki's waiver was no sure thing. It followed a monthslong campaign by Campbell, encouraged and supported by Bureau of Labor and Industries Commissioner Brad Avakian and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., they told The Oregonian. And it didn't arrive until Jan. 29, more than a month after Lynchild died, while Campbell agonized about funeral arrangements. It is the latest signal that the military -- and the nation -- is changing the way it views same-sex relationships.

A self-described lifelong "rule follower," Campbell is overjoyed that she and Lynchild will have their ashes buried together at Willamette. They will share space in the same cemetery where her father, a World War II veteran, and her mother have their ashes under a stone that says "Together forever."
read more here