Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

By Donita Naylor
Journal staff writer

EXETER -- Governor Carcieri dedicated $5.7 million in improvements at the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery this morning, saying the federal grant had helped create a "phenomenal facility."

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, Rep. James Langevin and Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy each said a few words about the federally funded improvements to the nation's third most active veterans cemetery.

The grant was used to build a new entrance and flag-lined drives, an administration building, a visitor's building with restrooms and an interactive information kiosk, a "columbarium" for ashes, and landscaping improvements.

Workers laying sod and connecting sprinkler systems barely paused for the ceremony.

"This is a place of peacefulness for people who have given their lives for their state and their nation," Carcieri said. "We tend to forget, too often, too much, that we enjoy ... what we have today because people were willing to step forward and sacrifice their time, their energy and in some cases their lives," he said. "And it's still happening today.

"Somebody was willing to put their life on the line to get us to this point," he said. "Too often we forget that."

Gold Star mother Dotti Arsenault, 55, was among the first to get a printout from the information kiosk. Her son, John Van Gyzen, was killed July 5, 2004, and is buried within view of the kiosk.

More than 22,000 veterans and their eligible dependents are buried at the cemetery, which averages more than 1,100 interments a year.

A plaque dedicates the new administration building to George T. Panichas, a member of the Army Air Corps in World War II and a state representative from 1971 to 1984. Just above the line that reads "Dedicated October 2008," is a quote from Aristotle: "You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor."

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