Los Angeles National Cemetery


The Los Angeles National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery in the Sawtelle unincorporated community of the West Los Angeles neighborhood in Los Angeles County, California.

Geography

The entrance to the cemetery is located at 950 South Sepulveda Boulevard at Constitution Avenue, near the intersection of Sepulveda Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard. It is adjacent to Westwood, Los Angeles and UCLA along the east across Veteran Avenue, and the main Sawtelle Veterans Home campus across the San Diego Freeway along the west. The cemetery was dedicated on May 22, 1889. It is directly connected to the central Veterans Home facilities by Constitution Avenue's underpass below freeway.

Cemetery

Interred on its are war veterans, from the:
An annual ceremony commemorating the birthday of Abraham Lincoln is held at the cemetery on or near February 12. The cemetery's annual Memorial Day program draws several thousand attendees each year.
The chapel at the cemetery was renamed the Bob Hope Veterans Chapel on 29 May 2002, Bob Hope's 99th birthday, in "celebration of his lifelong service to our American Veterans."

Notable burials

Medal of Honor recipients

Fourteen Medal of Honor recipients are buried at the cemetery:
Los Angeles National Cemetery has been closed to new interments since approximately 1978, with the exception of spouses of those already buried. To accommodate community need, the Department of Veterans Affairs acquired another to permit the cemetery to expand. Future interments will be in urns of cremated ashes placed in columbarium walls built on the new land. By eliminating ground burials, the new acreage will permit about as many new interments as are in the existing.
In 2017, Los Angeles National Cemetery began construction on the first phase of the columbarium on Constitution Avenue, west of I-405 just from the main cemetery entrance. This phase opened in October 2019 and occupies approximately of the site and holds 10,000 niches for cremated remains. The cemetery will construct additional niches on the site as needed until it reaches the planned capacity of 90,854.