{"id":28880,"date":"2025-11-21T16:08:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T21:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/?post_type=press-releases&p=28880"},"modified":"2025-11-21T16:08:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T21:08:54","slug":"sen-ossoff-pushing-to-build-veterans-cemetery-in-augusta","status":"publish","type":"press-releases","link":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/sen-ossoff-pushing-to-build-veterans-cemetery-in-augusta\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Ossoff Pushing to Build Veterans Cemetery in Augusta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Augusta, Ga. <\/strong>\u2014 U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is working to establish a new veterans cemetery in Augusta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ossoff is urging<\/a> U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins to ensure that the funding secured by Sen. Ossoff for the construction of veterans<\/a> cemeteries is quickly used to build a new veterans cemetery in Augusta, an effort he\u2019s been working on for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the top Democrat<\/a> on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, Sen. Ossoff secured $150 million in the bipartisan funding bill for Grants for Construction of Veterans Cemeteries, a significant increase over the President\u2019s request, which should be enough funding needed for a veterans cemetery in Augusta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project has been stuck on VA\u2019s priority list but hasn\u2019t had enough funding to proceed \u2014 until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bipartisan Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill first passed the Senate<\/a> in July and has since become law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAugusta is home to over 66,000 military veterans and many military families. The closest veterans cemeteries to Augusta are in Milledgeville, GA, and Columbia, SC, both of which are 80 miles away,\u201d Sen. Ossoff wrote to Secretary Collins<\/strong>. \u201cThe establishment of a veterans cemetery in Augusta would support the National Cemetery Administration’s goal of providing veterans reasonable access to burial benefits within 75 miles of the veteran\u2019s home. Augusta\u2019s veterans deserve the access to these benefits a cemetery in Augusta would provide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ossoff continues working to support Georgia\u2019s veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This month, Sen. Ossoff launched an inquiry<\/a> with the Acting Director of the Defense Health Agency (DHA) requesting more information about reported plans to reduce services at Eisenhower Army Medical Center, which serves between 30,000 to 40,000 active-duty servicemembers, retired servicemembers, their families, and DoD civilians in and around the CSRA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September, Sen. Ossoff cosponsored<\/a> the bipartisan Major Richard Star Act<\/em> to allow servicemembers who medically retired before 20 years of service to collect retirement pay from the Department of Defense and disability payments from the VA at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, Sens. Ossoff and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced<\/a> the Service-Disabled Veteran Opportunities in Small Business Act<\/em> to help disabled veterans\u2019 small businesses thrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February, Sens. Ossoff and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced<\/a> the Rural Veterans Transportation to Care Act<\/em> to help more veterans in rural areas get transportation to VA health facilities and access the health care benefits they\u2019ve earned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Sen. Ossoff passed into law<\/a> his bipartisan Investing in VETS Act<\/em> to help service-disabled veteran business owners compete for Federal government contracts, helping expand their business opportunities to new markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> to read Sen. Ossoff\u2019s full letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # #<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Augusta, Ga. \u2014 U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is working to establish a new veterans cemetery in Augusta. Sen. Ossoff is urging U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins to ensure that the funding secured by Sen. Ossoff for the construction of veterans cemeteries is quickly used to build a new veterans cemetery in Augusta, an effort he\u2019s been […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28880","press-releases","type-press-releases","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/28880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press-releases"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/28880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28881,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/28880\/revisions\/28881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}