The Omaha National Cemetery will be dedicated at 10 a.m. Friday at Sumtur Ampitheater in Papillion.
Although construction continues, burials for veterans and their close family members will start this fall.
It's part of the largest expansion of veterans’ cemeteries since The Civil War.
Army war veteran Glen Powers works with the National Cemetery Administration for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Omaha National Cemetery, among 19 under construction nationwide, will serve some 112,000 Omaha area veterans over the next century.
"Once these grounds are complete you'll see the beauty of the terrain,” Powers said. “How it's landscaped and maintained in perpetuity for the veteran and how that reflects how our nation feels about the service of veterans and what they've contributed for so long"
Navy veteran David Salak provides local support staff to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Salak says the ability for loved ones to visit their passed veterans in the Omaha area means a lot.
“It's absolutely going to be comforting to those families,” Salak said. “Knowing that they will be taken care of and they'll be looked after for the rest of our lives.”
Army veteran and Omaha National Cemetery Director Cindy Van Bibber says there are already cement vaults installed where some of the first fallen veterans will lay to rest as soon as this fall.
"Anytime a veteran passes away, to be able to have a national shrine in your own back yard is very significant. Speaking for myself as a veteran, being able to say that I have a home back here in Nebraska and my family
There are wooden markers staked near the cemetery entrance feet from the cemetery entrance.
Flagpoles will replace those stakes to represent individual veterans buried in Sarpy County.
