WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded nearly $1 million to a small business to begin expanding burial services for Veterans in the San Diego area by developing the new Miramar Annex.
“VA is committed to providing the best possible service to the Veterans of southern California by developing new burial areas and building permanent facilities at the Miramar Annex,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said.
The Miramar Annex will be part of the area’s Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. VA awarded Van Dyke Landscape Architects the architect-engineer contract totaling $961,000 to develop additional gravesites and infrastructure. This design project is scheduled for completion this fall.
When completed, the new designs for the project will provide 11,700 conventional gravesites, 10,300 columbaria niches and 4,900 in-ground cremation sites. The project will also include an administration building, a maintenance complex, two committal service shelters and a public assembly area, as well as an irrigation system, roads, utilities, signage and landscaping.
In the midst of the largest cemetery expansion since the Civil War, VA operates 128 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.
Veterans with a discharge other than dishonorable, their spouses and eligible dependent children can be buried in a national cemetery. Other burial benefits available for all eligible Veterans, regardless of whether they are buried in a national cemetery or a private cemetery, include a burial flag, a Presidential Memorial Certificate and a government headstone or marker.
Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the Internet at www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.
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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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