An honor guard remembers a soldier's service. At hundreds of funerals each year, Kentucky's Camp Nelson Honor Guard accompanies veterans to their final resting place at Camp Nelson National Cemetery with full military honors. The guard is among only three in the nation using caisson and riderless horse, symbolizing the soldier who will ride no more.

President Abraham Lincoln signed into law a system of national cemeteries in 1862 for Union soldiers. Fourteen national cemeteries were established during the Civil War.

Camp Nelson cemetery was opened in 1863 for African-American soldiers from the Union Army. When it became a national cemetery in 1868, hundreds of Civil War dead were re-buried here.

There are now 151 national cemeteries. Camp Nelson is among the seven national cemeteries in Kentucky maintained by the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Cemetery Administration.