Orange County has served as the home of former Marine, Army, and Navy bases. It is also estimated that over 100,000 veterans reside within the county. Due to years of a lack of consensus on a location, Orange County continues to be the largest County in California without a Veterans Cemetery.

However, Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva and Assemblymember Steven Choi have co-authored AB-1595 to bring a Veterans Cemetery to Orange County. If passed into law, AB-1595 will allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to design, develop, and construct a State-owned and State-operated Southern California Veterans Cemetery at the Gypsum Canyon site.

My Board colleagues and I agree that our local veterans have waited too long for the creation of an Orange County Veterans Cemetery. On July 28, 2021, the Orange County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved allocating $20 million exclusively for the site development of a Veterans Cemetery at Gypsum Canyon and adopted a resolution to move forward with the planning and development of the proposed site.

It is our hope and goal that the proposed Orange County Veterans Cemetery at Gypsum Canyon will come to fruition, so we can take the next step to lay our veterans, including those who have served in the Korean War and Vietnam War, to rest with dignity.

On the tour, U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran and President of the Veterans Alliance of Orange County (VALOR) Nick Berardino stated, “We took that hill, and we’re not giving it up!”