Section of Galway cemetery dedicated as new Field of Honour for military veterans

St. John's has a new Field of Honouras a final resting place for military veterans.

About 100 people attended a dedication ceremony Thursday to mark the occasion, including veterans andcurrent enlisted service members, and their families.

"Our old Field of Honour in Mount Pleasant Cemetery is pretty well full so we took it upon ourselves to come up with a new Field of Honour," said Leo O'Brien, N.L.'s branch president of the Last Post Fund, on Thursday.

The Last Post Fund is an organization, founded in1909, thatprovides funding for the funerals of fallen veterans.

The new Field of Honour is at Memorial Gardens Cemetery, in the St. John's neighbourhood of Galway.

About 500 plots were given to the Last Post Fund but it took more than a decade to raise the money for the field, said O'Brien.

"Veteran Affairs has been very helpful but we've been fundraising. Donations make up a big part of it," he said.

"The land itself was about another $5,000. We're not quite finished with it yet. We have other plans in the works. We hope to maybe gets some benches to go around here and dress it up a bit."

Some Second World War veteransattended the dedication and wreath-laying ceremony on Thursday.

O'Briensaid it's gratifying and extremely important to have them there.

"Some of them are getting well up in age. Some of them are getting quitefeeble. But we're very fortunate and very appreciative of that fact that they could make their way here from the Caribou Pavilion today," he said.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador