John Ranum will be inurned in the Columbarium in Arlington National Cemetery later this summer.
Originally from Minnesota, Ranum lived in Great Falls before his death in March 2023.
He’d been drafted to serve in Vietnam, he told the Great Falls Rotary in 2015, but was selected to serve as a Sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington from 1960 to 1961.
In an email, Joyce Ranum, his widow said the soldier was “quietly proud” of his time guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, “an arduous but honorable task.”
His active-duty service guarding the tomb helped qualify him for inurnment in one of the nation’s oldest national military cemeteries.
All honorably discharged U.S. military veterans are eligible to be inurned, meaning their ashes are placed, in the Columbarium in Arlington, as are certain reservists and ROTC members who die while on duty, according to cemetery rules.

Ranum’s inurement is scheduled for 3 p.m. July 29, according to his widow.
After his military service, Ranum moved to Montana and sold farm machinery.
In Great Falls, he met and married Joyce in 1984.
Ranum was “always a gentleman, Joyce Ranum said. “He was a 47-year-old bachelor when he got me and three teenage boys.”
Ranum will be one of several Montanans whose final resting place is in Arlington.
Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, who grew up in Great Falls, is buried in Arlington with his wife, Maureen. He’s listed on his tombstone as Michael Joseph Mansfield, Private, U.S. Marine Corps, reflecting his military service. Mansfield, also a U.S. ambassador to Japan, died in 2001.
Even with ongoing expansion, Arlington National Cemetery is expected to run out of room for burial plots by 2060, according to cemetery officials.
In 2014, Ranum volunteered at the Wall That Heals, a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation.
His brother-in-law is named on the memorial.
“I’ve seen some guys that it just tears them up,” he told this reporter at the time (when she was working for the Great Falls Tribune). “It can be very emotional for them. I can’t imagine their feelings, but I’m glad to be here to help.”
He said in 2014 at the traveling memorial that some young people came to see the memorial were curious and wanted to learn more about it. It was an opportunity to teach younger generations about the service of past veterans, he said.

Photos: U.S. Army