Historic West Point Cemetery to undergo $3.5M expansion

WEST POINT, N.Y. – The final resting place of some of the nation's most distinguished soldiers is being expanded to provide more burial space.

The Times Herald-Record of Middletown reports (http://bit.ly/29L1rRG ) the nearly 200-year-old West Point Cemetery is down to 40 burial spaces, but a $3.5 million expansion will add 308 gravesites when the project is completed early next year.

Officials at the U.S. Military Academy informed the academy's Board of Visitors on Monday that a larger, $18 million expansion is planned but still needs approval. That project would accommodate burials for the next 50 years.

The board of visitors reports to the president and provides advice to West Point officials.

The more than 8,000 burials at the cemetery include Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and more than a dozen Medal of Honor recipients.

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Information from: The Times Herald-Record, http://www.th-record.com