Category Veteran’s Cemetery

VETERANS DAY IN THE BOOKS? AT CALVET, EVERY DAY IS A NEW PAGE WHEN IT COMES TO SERVING THEM
The parades and picnics are over. Speeches made and proclamations read. The American flags that lined the streets throughout the country and California are neatly folded, stored until the next national holiday. Veterans Day – America’s annual day of thanking veterans for defending this country and the freedoms our Constitution guarantees – is in the […]

GO AHEAD, MAKE MY VETERANS DAY: WHEN FORT ORD WAS A SPRINGBOARD TO HOLLYWOOD
From World War I through the first Gulf War, Fort Ord was a U.S. Army base known for producing soldiers. Today, it is home to CalVet’s California Central Coast Veterans Cemetery and also to Cal State University-Monterey Bay, among other things. For a few years in the early 1950s, however, the outpost on the Monterey […]

CALVET’S VETERANS DAY POSTER DEFINES OUR MISSION AND PURPOSE
As a nation, we rely upon our armed forces to protect and defend the Constitution and the rights and freedoms it guarantees. Our servicemembers risk their lives for the reward of maintaining our democracy; even putting this solemn duty ahead of their own wellbeing, families, and loved ones. Yet, over the decades, veterans have had […]

MEMORIAL DAY SERVICE RETURNS TO CALVET CEMETERY IN SEASIDE AFTER TWO-YEAR PANDEMIC ABSENCE
On a cool and windy recent May morning, Catherine Figueroa donned a camouflage coat and ball cap as she arrived at the California Central Coast Veterans Cemetery in Seaside. She drove to the top of the hill, to the Columbarium that contains the ashes of her husband, Army veteran Pedro Figueroa, who died in October […]

PUTTING MEMORIAL DAY INTO FOCUS AMID THE BLUR OF A 3-DAY WEEKEND
When Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, it ultimately transformed three holidays and one day of remembrance – the latter being Memorial Day – into three-day weekends. The underlying reason? Travel, barbecues, picnics, and such all benefit the national, regional, and local economies. It became the unofficial start of the summer tourism […]

SEVEN SCORE AND 17 YEARS AGO, LINCOLN GAVE AMERICA’S MOST MEMORABLE ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG
November 19, 1863, 157 year ago, just over four months after one of the deadliest, bloodiest, and defining battles of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He spent the night in David Wills’s home in downtown Gettysburg, less than a mile away from the cemetery that would be dedicated the following […]

GROUNDBREAKING SET FOR NATIVE AMERICAN MEMORIAL PLAZA THAT WILL SHOWCASE “THE GIFT” STATUE AT RIVERSIDE
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Cemetery Administration will break ground on the plaza of the American Indians Veterans Memorial on Friday, September 25 at the Riverside National Cemetery. It will be the first major monument honoring U.S. indigenous veterans located at a VA national cemetery. The Memorial will feature a statue named “The […]

TODAY MARKS 158th ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICA’S HIGHEST MILITARY HONOR
At the headquarters of the California Department of Veterans Affairs in Sacramento, the Medal of Honor Wall honors 173 Californians who received the nation’s highest military honor. Plaques honor many of them in the adjacent Medal of Honor Hall as well. “Our admiration and respect for the Californians, and to all others who received the […]