WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has selected David Wells as the first director of a new national cemetery to be built in South Florida.
The national cemetery land is in Palm Beach County, 19 miles northwest of Boca Raton. When the cemetery opens in August 2005, it will provide burials to nearly 438,000 veterans and their families who live within a 75-mile range.
Wells has been the assistant director at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell since 1995. He was previously the director of national cemeteries in Bourne, Mass.; Dayton, Ohio; and Culpeper, Va. Wells joined VA’s National Cemetery Administration in 1983 as a work-study employee at the Knoxville, Tenn., National Cemetery. In 1989, he entered the cemetery director training program.
When completed, the cemetery’s 55-acre initial construction phase will contain 23,000 casket gravesites, a 15,000-unit columbarium and 3,100 spaces for in-ground cremated remains. The new cemetery will also include an administration and maintenance complex, four committal service shelters, a public information center with electronic gravesite locator and restrooms, a flag assembly area, a memorial walkway, and infrastructure elements including roadways, landscaping, utilities and irrigation.
Construction likely will begin in June 2005, with burials beginning in August 2005 in a small section during construction. The cemetery staff will work initially from a temporary office and committal service shelter until construction is completed.
Veterans with a discharge other than dishonorable, their spouses and dependent children are eligible for burial in a national cemetery. Other burial benefits for eligible veterans 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 expansion since the Civil War, VA operates 120 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, 33 soldiers' lots and monument sites. More than 2.5 million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict — from the Revolutionary War to the current war in Iraq — are buried in VA’s national cemeteries.
VA also provides grants to states to build new, and expand existing, state veterans cemeteries. Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices or the Internet at http://www.cem.va.gov, or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.
Information on the South Florida-area national cemetery is available by calling the VA Memorial Service Network in Atlanta at 404-929-5899.
