WASHINGTON – Georgia National Cemetery became the nation’s newest veterans cemetery when the facility had its first burials this week.
“This new VA national cemetery honors our commitment to America’s veterans,” said the Honorable R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. “This new shrine will meet the memorial needs of Atlanta-area veterans and their families for the next 50 years and more.”
Administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the 775-acre site is located in Cherokee County, approximately 40 miles north of Atlanta, along state Route 20, west of Canton. Nearly 400,000 veterans and their families live within the service radius of the national cemetery. The land for the cemetery was donated to VA by Scott Hudgens, the late Atlanta World War II veteran, land developer and philanthropist. To build the cemetery, VA awarded a $31 million contract to J. M. Wilkerson Construction Company, Inc., of Marietta, Ga., in December 2004.
Burials began today in areas turned over to VA by Wilkerson as part of VA’s plan to provide burial service as soon as possible. The early turnover areas comprise approximately 50 acres that include one committal shelter and four burial sections. The burial sections have capacity for 8,119 full-casket gravesites, consisting of 5,923 pre-placed crypts and 2,196 standard gravesites, and 3,129 in-ground cremation gravesites.
In addition to four burial sections, the contractor turned over the administration building and the maintenance building ahead of schedule. The complete 110-acre initial construction project calls for 17,200 full-casket gravesites, 12,000 pre-placed crypts, a 3,000-unit columbarium, 765 sites for in-ground cremated remains and a scattering garden for cremated remains. The plan also includes the construction of two more committal shelters, a public information center with electronic gravesite locator and public restrooms, a cemetery entrance area, flag assembly area, a memorial walkway, a donations area and infrastructure elements including roadways, landscaping, utilities and irrigation. Phase-one construction is scheduled for completion in July 2007.
Veterans with a discharge other than dishonorable, their spouses and eligible dependent children can be buried in a national cemetery. Other burial benefits include a burial flag, a Presidential Memorial Certificate and a government headstone or marker – even if they are not buried in a national cemetery.
In the midst of the largest cemetery expansion since the Civil War, VA operates 123 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico and 33 soldiers’ lots and monument sites. More than three million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict — from the Revolutionary War to the Global War on Terror — are buried in VA’s national cemeteries on more than 16,000 acres of land.
Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the Internet at http://www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.
For information on the Georgia National Cemetery, call the cemetery office at (866) 236-8159.
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Reporters and media outlets with questions or comments should contact the Office of Media Relations at vapublicaffairs@va.gov
Veterans with questions about their health care and benefits (including GI Bill). Questions, updates and documents can be submitted online.
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