VA Names New South Carolina National Cemetery

wards First Construction Contract, Appoints Director

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has named the national cemetery to be built near Columbia, S.C., as the “Fort Jackson National Cemetery.”  VA also awarded a $2.53 million construction contract for the initial phase of development to International Public Works, LLC, of North Charleston.

The new 585-acre cemetery will be located in Richland County just east of the city of Columbia and south of Interstate Highway 20 on property donated by the Fort Jackson Army post.

“VA is keeping its promise to our nation’s veterans by building this new national shrine,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. “The Columbia area deserves a magnificent, lasting tribute to the service of its military veterans.”

VA has selected Gene Linxwiler as the first director of Fort Jackson National Cemetery.  After retiring from the Navy in 1999, Linxwiler joined VA’s National Cemetery Administration as a director intern at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, Ore.  Linxwiler was then assigned to Natchez National Cemetery in Mississippi.  He was also director of Fort McPherson National Cemetery in Nebraska from October 2004 to September 2006.

Immediately before taking the new position at Fort Jackson, Linxwiler was the director of Fort Bliss National Cemetery in Texas and Fort Bayard National Cemetery in New Mexico. 

VA expects construction of a 15-acre area to begin this summer and burials to begin there later this year.  The cemetery staff will work initially from a temporary office, committal service shelter and equipment facility building until construction is completed.  That area will include 1,400 full-casket gravesites and 1,100 in-ground cremation burial sites.

When the cemetery’s 50-acre first phase of development is finished, it will contain 5,000 full-casket gravesites, including 4,200 pre-placed crypts and approximately 2,000 columbarium niches.  It will provide burials for more than 170,000 veterans and their families who live in central South Carolina.

The cemetery will include an administration/public information center, public restrooms, a maintenance building and two committal service shelters.  Other infrastructure will include roadways, landscaping, utilities and irrigation.

Veterans with a discharge issued under conditions 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 125 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, 33 soldiers’ lots and monument sites.  More than 3 million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict — from the Revolutionary War to the current Global War on Terror — are buried in VA’s national cemeteries.

VA also provides grants to states to build new or expand existing state veterans cemeteries to complement national cemeteries.  VA burial benefits information can be obtained from national cemetery offices, a 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.

For information about the Fort Jackson National Cemetery, call the cemetery staff at (866) 577-5248.  To make burial arrangements, call the national scheduling office at (800) 535-1117.