For Warriors Past and Future

"You can see even though it does start to decline, it stays high," administration spokesman Mike Nacincik said.

He said the agency, which does not run Arlington, is in the midst of its largest expansion since the Civil War -- adding 12 national cemeteries across the country to the 125 it operates.

Of those, Nacincik said, half are full or open chiefly for cremation funerals.

Officials at Fort Riley, Kan., declared the eight-acre cemetery at the historic Army base full after the Sept. 18 burial of a World War II veteran. More than 5,000 people are buried there.

At Arlington, which is run by the Army, the steady death toll from Iraq and Afghanistan has added to the numbers, although the cemetery gets only about 11 percent of those cases. More than 400 members of the armed forces who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan have been buried there.

Arlington cemetery officials said they are aware of the trends.

"We want Arlington National Cemetery to be available for veterans into the future," said cemetery Superintendent John C. Metzler Jr. "We don't want to close it down. Arlington is our nation's national cemetery."

"Part of my job is to look out 100 years," Metzler said. He wanted to be sure that "we're never out of grave space, we're never down to that critical five-year window where we have nothing on the books" that would keep the cemetery open.

The initial work, to be contracted through the Army Corps of Engineers, would control drainage into the new sections, Metzler said.

Katherine Basye Welton, cemetery project manager for the Corps of Engineers, said the first contracts were to be awarded by this month, but because of inadequate bids, the work might not be awarded until the end of the year.

The project is expected to unfold over the next 10 years with funding hoped for from Congress.

But it has not thrilled everyone. Although the transfer of the Arlington House land from the Park Service was decreed by law five years ago, it still rankles there. The parcel, which could lose many of its trees, has not been logged since the Civil War.