KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) – Every year hundreds of veterans are buried at the veterans cemetery in Killeen and some of them don\u2019t have family members attending the service.<\/p>\n
Seaman Apprentice Jay Myatt, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy, was laid to rest at the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery without family in attendance this week.<\/p>\n
Like most others, his unaccompanied burial service drew in members of the community and was led by fellow veteran Marc George.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see this, you see that we have some good-hearted people in our community,\u201d said George. \u201cPeople that take time out of their day for someone they\u2019ve never even met.\u201d<\/p>\n
Myatt adds to the nearly 18,000 veterans buried this one location in Texas and plans to expand the property are underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we reach the point where we\u2019re about 4 years out from exhaustion of a particular plot type, we apply for a National Cemetery Administration grant,\u201d said Dr. John Kelley, Dir. Texas State Veterans Cemetery Division.<\/p>\n
They were able to get approved for close to $13M to expand the Central Texas location.<\/p>\n
This will allow them to make room for 4,000 columbaria niches, 2,700 in-ground cremated remains plots, and 4,700 pre-placed crypts.<\/p>\n
\u201cPre-positioned crypts means, we\u2019ve already dug a gigantic hole, we\u2019ve put a bunch of those concrete boxes in the ground, we cover them up with dirt,\u201d said Dr. Kelley. \u201cThen, when there\u2019s an internment, we would just uncover one of those, take the lid off, and the casket goes in the concrete box that\u2019s already in the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
This massive expansion is expected to provide enough space for the next 10 years at a cemetery officials said needs it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been told by national folks that it\u2019s as busy or busier than some of the national cemeteries,\u201d said Dr. Kelley. \u201cThey are literally doing a service every hour, all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n
George said he was happy to hear the news of the expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I\u2019m glad they\u2019re being proactive instead of reactive,\u201d said George. \u201cI\u2019ve been following the progress of the new Lubbock State Cemetery and it\u2019s amazing, it looks great. There\u2019s already a waiting list for it. So, that tells how much needed this is.\u201d<\/p>\n
A groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion will take place next week and the goal is to have the work done by May, 2027.<\/p>\n
Jay Myatt was a Vietnam veteran and served in the Navy from July 1968 to May 1970<\/p>\n
Myatt received the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, and the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for his service.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 KWTX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) – Every year hundreds of veterans are buried at the veterans cemetery in Killeen and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15500,15499,5196,15498,27,29,28,15501,3435],"class_list":["post-20459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-central-texas-state-veterans-cemetery","tag-ctsvc","tag-expansion","tag-jay-myatt","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-unaccompanied-veteran-burial","tag-veteran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}