VISITORS to the American Military Cemetery in Brookwood may be turned away on Remembrance Sunday because of a US Government budget deadlock.

On Tuesday last week − for the first time in 17 years − the White House issued orders for many Government-funded federal agencies and venues – including all memorials of the American Battle Monuments Commission – to be shut down for an indefinite period due to ‘a lack of funding’.

Brookwood is one of only two ABMC cemeteries in the UK, the other being at Madingley, near Cambridge, although Woking is the only one of the two that has US casualties of the Second World War.

The ABMC website stated: “Due to a lack of funding, cemeteries and memorials are temporarily closed. We regret any inconvenience caused.

“ABMC will resume normal operations when a new funding measure is passed by the US Congress and signed by the President of the United States.”

ABMC maintain 24 cemeteries around the world, 20 of which are in Europe. Unless the US Government gridlock is lifted, there will be a noticeable vacuum on next month’s Remembrance Day for those who want to honour the memory of the many US armed-forces members laid to rest at the Brookwood Cemetery.

In total there are 468 graves of the military dead who sacrificed their lives defending our shores, while the Memorial Chapel is home to the inscriptions of 563 names of missing armed-forces personnel.

Most were in the marines and buried at sea, and those who were eventually recovered and identified are marked by rosettes.

ABMC Superintendent at Brookwood, Craig Rahanian, said: “I am a civil servant to the US Government and we can only hope by November 10 we will not still be shutdown.

“Until such time we are to stay here to make sure the cemetery remains safe and secure.”

Meanwhile, the US Government budget deadline was missed due to a stalemate in Congress between President Barack Obama’s Democrat-led Senate and the far-right Republicans. Each party has blamed the other for the shutdown for being unyielding over Obama’s Affordable Care Act, known as ‘Obamacare’ .