GRAYLING — In 2022, Public Act 166 passed, which approved the funding for northern Michigan’s only veterans cemetery.
All that needed to be done to start construction was to find suitable land that spanned at least 100 acres.
Four years later, the cemetery’s location remains up in the air.
Retired Colonel Wayne Koppa, a Grayling veteran, is trying to move things along. He said Michigan, compared to other states, lags, as usually veterans cemeteries are open in four years — not stalled at finding a place for the burial ground.
“It does not appear to us that it’s being worked hard enough,” Koppa said.
The Veterans Administration aimed to have a veterans cemetery in each state and every 150 miles. Michigan is the only state that has not reached that goal, with a 500-mile gap in the northern part, and no veterans cemetery between Holly and Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Koppa said part of the situation is that a decision was made to purchase property rather than use a part of Michigan Department of Natural Resources land or part of Camp Grayling, which is 147,000 acres.
With Crawford County 148 miles away from Holly, Koppa said it’s an “ideal place” to put the cemetery, in addition to the county being in the middle of northern Michigan.
However, the American Legion Department of Michigan, a veterans organization, said it wants to establish a cemetery in the Upper Peninsula first.
“We did not back the cemetery in Crawford County because we have no resolution to back it and because the veterans in the Upper Peninsula are further away from any veterans cemetery than the people in the Lower Peninsula,” the legion’s legislative chair, Tim Poxson, said.
Poxson said that he wants to emphasize that the Legion is not against the establishment of a veterans cemetery in Crawford County, but would rather prioritize the creation of one in the Upper Peninsula first.
He said the Upper Peninsula area has the highest veteran population per capita in the state.
Poxson also said Crawford County should not have been picked in the way it was.
“We don’t believe that the pre-picking of a spot around Camp Grayling was the proper way to go about it,” he said. “They should have asked for one in mid-Michigan and then picked out the best spot. But I think there was a lot of political influence to get it done around Camp Grayling.”
Even if a location is decided, the funding has been just as inconsistent. In 2023 and 2025, funding was approved in the state budget and later withdrawn.
Although the Federal Veterans Cemetery Grant Program awarded $13.47 million for construction in 2023, funding to acquire land has yet to be approved.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Department of Michigan, as an organization, supports establishing a veterans cemetery in northern Michigan, according to Barry Walters.
“We desperately need it. There’s no question about it,” Walters said.
Walters said the VA has strict guidelines for funding veterans cemeteries. For northern Michigan, the population density does not fit the VA’s guidelines.
“A 75-mile radius from Grayling does not have the density of veteran population to meet those guidelines,” Walters said. “Very frankly, the problem has been that there is no single point in that area – or north of that area – to include in the U.P. that does meet those guidelines.”
The American Legion disagrees that there is not enough density in the population.
“I’ve met with the VA in Washington, D.C., and here in Michigan when their leadership was here in Michigan and, yes, it can be funded,” Poxson said. “They can’t put a federal cemetery in because it will not meet the criteria of the number of veterans that it would serve within a radius. But they can fund and pay for all the building, all the buying of the property, all that.
“They can reimburse the state of Michigan for those costs.”
With the veterans cemetery, these distances are set so that families won’t have to travel more than 75 miles to pay respects to their loved ones and other veterans, Koppa said.
In addition, veterans’ families can save nearly $3,500 on funeral costs at a veterans’ cemetery.
Koppa said this is just one of the two cemeteries that are sought in northern Michigan and that the Veterans Administration won’t help fund the next project “until they see a demonstration of the ability to get the job done.”
Koppa and the Crawford County Board of Commissioners contacted state legislators, including state Sen. Michele Hoitenga, R-Manton; and state Rep. Ken Borton, R-Gaylord. The board sent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer a letter, urging action.
“I would think she wants to do this on her watch,” Koppa said, “and not to have it happen sometime down the road.”
