Orange County will soon get its first cemetery for veterans

Orange County will soon get its first veterans cemetery in Gypsum Canyon alongside the 91 Freeway after the Anaheim City Council unanimously approved the plan Tuesday night.

Orange County is home to an estimated 80,000 veterans, according to the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet). The nearest cemetery dedicated to the burial of military personnel is the Riverside National Cemetery located at least 40 miles away.

The 150-acre veterans cemetery project will be located alongside a public cemetery, O.C.’s first in over 100 years.The public cemetery will be managed by the Orange County Cemetery District, while the veterans cemetery will be built and maintained by CalVet.

“It would look like one big cemetery, but in reality it's two separate cemeteries,” said Tim Deutsch, general manager at the Orange County Cemetery District. “We'll share access in, we'll share bridge in, we'll share utilities, and then all of those costs associated with building the bridge, bringing utilities will all be part of the shared cost.”

The public cemetery will also contain two unique components — one for allied troops who served alongside American troops in the Vietnam and Korean wars, one for first responders.

What a veterans cemetery would mean for families

The Veterans Alliance of Orange County represents 150 veteran organizations and has been lobbying for a veterans cemetery for the past 14 years.

Nick Berardino, president of the Veterans Alliance of Orange County, said some local survivors of veterans have been storing the ashes of their loved ones until the cemetery is complete. Others have been making the trek to Riverside County, while some have buried their loved ones on private plots.

Berardino said he has spoken to some Gold Star Mothers, those who have lost a child in active combat, who “are extraordinarily excited” about the cemetery coming to Orange County.

“For the mothers who we know unfortunately will be losing their children in future conflicts and wars, this will give them comfort, that if their child is lost, they can be close to their child, and that's really important to the Gold Star Mothers,” Berardino said.

Beradino, a veteran himself, said the idea of being buried in a public cemetery can bring about a “feeling of loneliness and I don't think you rest as peacefully.”

“In the veterans cemetery we are laid to rest with our brothers and sisters, who we have served with, and it gives us great comfort to be with each other again in our final resting place,” he said.

Being buried in a veterans cemetery also means you get the ceremonial actions of a 21 gun salute and for Vietnam War Veterans a motorcycle escort, he added.

How we got here

Talks of a veterans cemetery in Orange County date back to the early 2010s and led to AB 1453, a bill calling on the state to build and maintain a resting place for veterans in the county. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to bring the cemetery to fruition.

But efforts to build the cemetery at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro and at Irvine’s Great Park stalled over the years.

“We began in the city of Irvine, where through internal political battles going on in Irvine, we got kicked off of two sites so we finally came to the Gypsum Canyon site several years ago and we have been focusing on building it there,” Berardino said.

The Gypsum Canyon location for the veterans cemetery has won support from county, city and state leaders. In the recently passed state budget, around $5 million was allocated toward the veterans cemetery, bringing the total funding secured to $50 million from various state and county departments. CalVet has also applied for a federal grant to support the project.

The need for the public cemetery

Deutsch said that El Toro Memorial Park, the only public cemetery in the county, has about 600 spaces available for burials, enough to last the county around two years.

The Orange County Cemetery District has plans to convert roads into burial spaces at the Santa Ana Cemetery, giving the county an additional two years of available burial spaces.

What’s next

Construction could begin by 2026 with the cemetery opening for burials by 2027.

The cemetery plans will come in front of the council again on Aug. 13 for a procedural vote.