VA Awards $2.9 Million for Nebraska State Veterans Cemetery

Grant establishes new veterans cemetery in Alliance

WASHINGTON – Ensuring that Nebraska veterans have a final resting place to honor their service to the nation, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced a $2.9 million grant to establish the Nebraska Veterans Cemetery in Alliance. 

“A new state veterans’ cemetery in western Nebraska will greatly expand the opportunity for veterans to be buried in a place that commemorates their sacrifice,” said Dr. James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. “We are proud to partner with the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs to establish this cemetery.”

The 21-acre cemetery will be developed in phases, each designed to accommodate 10 years of burials and serve 6,000 veterans and eligible dependents in western Nebraska.  The first phase includes an initial 12-acre development that will provide 1,372 full-casket burial sites and 1,177 in-ground cremation burial sites. The grant will provide 100 percent of the funding for construction of the full-casket and cremation burial areas and supporting infrastructure to include roads, utilities, landscaping and irrigation. The grant also includes design and construction administration costs

Nebraska has one other state veterans cemetery, located in Grand Island.

VA’s State Cemetery Grants Program complements VA’s 125 national cemeteries across the country. The program helps states establish new veterans cemeteries and expand or improve existing cemeteries.  To date, the VA program has helped establish 72 state veterans cemeteries in 38 states and U.S. territories that provided more than 23,000 burials in fiscal year 2007.  Since the program began in 1980, VA has awarded 172 grants totaling $344 million.

Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the VA Web site on the Internet at www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.

Information about Nebraska’s state veterans cemeteries is available by calling the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs at (402) 471-2458 or on the Internet at www.nebraskaveteran.com.

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