Nicholson: New cemetery will honor Iowa veterans’ service
WASHINGTON – Ensuring that Iowa veterans have a final resting place to honor their service to the nation, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the award of a $7.6 million grant to establish a new state veterans cemetery in Van Meter.
“We are proud to partner with the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs to establish this cemetery,” said the Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson. “It will greatly expand the opportunity for Iowa veterans to be buried in a place that commemorates their service and sacrifice.”
The Iowa Veterans Cemetery, the first state veterans cemetery in Iowa, will be located in Dallas County near Des Moines. Nearly 70,000 veterans and their families live within its service area.
The grant will pay 100 percent of allowable costs for the cemetery’s construction, which is scheduled to begin this fall. It also covers construction of nearly 10,000 full-casket gravesites, 750 in-ground cremation sites, 768 columbarium niches, a memorial walkway, a storage building, utilities, landscaping and irrigation. Interments are expected to begin in the fall of 2008.
Keokuk National Cemetery, operated by VA in the southeastern part of the state, has space available to accommodate both casketed and cremated remains.
VA’s State Cemetery Grants Program complements VA’s 125 national cemeteries across the country. The program helps states establish, expand or improve veterans cemeteries. To date, the VA program has helped establish 66 state veterans cemeteries in 35 states, Saipan and Guam, which provided more than 22,000 burials in fiscal year 2006. VA has awarded 155 grants totaling more than $283 million.
Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the VA Web site on the Internet at http://www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.
Information about Iowa’s state veterans cemetery can be obtained from the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs at ** http://www.iowava.org/vetcemetery/ ** or (515) 242-5331.
** Indicates a link to a non- Department of Veterans Affairs Website. VA does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of the linked website.
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