Veteran’s Corner

Jason Hicks | Commander United Patriotic bodies
Fargo Memorial Honor Guard

Greetings all Veterans and supporters.
Soon we will be celebrating 4 years at the Fargo National Cemetery. We recently passed over 1000 burials.
As many know and maybe some do not. The Fargo National Cemetery started as a rural initiative project, to offer a national cemetery to those of us not living near one. Our closest one is Ft. Snelling and that is almost full, and there is nowhere for expansion.
The Fargo National Cemetery started out as a small piece of land, under 5 acres and has acquired an additional 30 plus acres for the future. It had been estimated the Fargo location would last 15 years before expansion was needed, however those projections have changed.
Another item of interest. When we opened the cemetery, the Fargo Memorial Honor guard was formed, we combined members from the VFW, American Legion, AMVETs, Marine Corps League, Vietnam Veterans of America and others to perform our sacred burial rituals. We are all volunteers and love what we do, in any weather conditions we are there.
One thing that really stood out was the lack of any type of shelter. When we asked the VA about this we were told by a low level bureaucrat that no buildings were authorized at a location under 100 acres. So we as an organization took it upon ourselves to solve this problem. The initial thought was we would raise the money and purchase land near the cemetery to have this structure as a private entity. Now through the efforts of Senator John Hoeven the VA has agreed to let us build on their property and once the building is complete, they will take over the operations of said building. There are still a lot of moving pieces and parts to this project, but it is moving.
I wish to thank everyone who supports our veterans; this is a great country we have.