ND Veterans Cemetery celebrates Memorial Day

MANDAN, N.D. (KFYR) – More than two thousand people took part in this year’s Memorial Day program at the North Dakota Veterans Cemetery.

This year’s event featured a flyover and a cannon salute… but guests also got the chance to learn what’s new at the cemetery.

This 21-cannon salute symbolizes and honors veterans who have fallen and passed away. But for friends, family and colleagues, those veterans live on in their memories.

“It means a lot to us, I’ve lost a soldier on a deployment and it means for than words can say,” said ND National Guard Travis Tesky.

Veterans were also honored with a flyover by two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. The ND Army Aviation celebrated a record of more than 157 thousand safe flying hours.

“I feel like it is my obligation since they provided that for me, I’m going to provide this for them. It’s also kind of near and dear to our hearts, one of our pilots his father passed away a few years ago. For me to fly on his crew, to do this flyover as a respect to him and as a respect to his dad means a lot to all of us,” said ND National Guard Sgt. Joey Vandervliet.

This is the spot where a columbarium will stand. The cemetery received a $1.8 million grant to build it. One of the highlights of the day was the groundbreaking.

“It is something that we have been looking at doing for quite a few years, so to be at this stage of it is a huge deal for the North Dakota Veteran’s Cemetery and for our veterans that we serve,” said ND Veterans Cemetery Director Pamela Helbling-Scahfer.

The cemetery hopes the project will be finished by the end of October.

The columbarium will have 2,240 niches for cremation urns. The cemetery will still offer full body and cremation ground burial as options.

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