SECTION 7. Veterans' burial agent; appointment; powers and duties

In each city, except Boston, and in each town, the veterans' agent shall be the burial agent; and in Boston, the soldiers' relief commission shall designate a burial agent who shall be a veteran. He shall, under regulations established by the commissioner, cause properly to be interred the body of any veteran or adult dependent who dies without sufficient means to defray funeral expenses, and the body of any dependent child of a veteran if such veteran and his wife, or his widow, be without sufficient means to defray funeral expenses. If interment of any such body has taken place without the knowledge of the burial agent, application may be made to him within 60 days after the date of death, or after final interment, if the veteran dies in the service, and if upon investigation he shall find that the deceased was within the provisions of this section and the rules of the commissioner, he may certify the same as provided in section eight. The provisions of this section shall not apply to any person who at the time of entering the federal service was a subject or citizen of a neutral country, who had filed his intention to become a citizen of the United States and who afterward withdrew such intention under the act of congress approved July ninth, nineteen hundred and eighteen, nor to any person designated upon his discharge as a conscientious objector. The provisions of this section shall also apply to any person who served as a state guardsman in the military service of the commonwealth between April fifth, nineteen hundred and seventeen, and December twenty-first, nineteen hundred and nineteen, or served in the state guard established during World War II, and was honorably discharged from such service and dies without sufficient means to defray funeral expenses, but shall not apply to any adult dependent or dependent child of such person.