The Veterans Land Board believes strongly in honoring our country’s veterans, whether by serving those still with us or commemorating the fallen. Today we’d like to highlight the recipient of a grant intended to do just that: Texas State University (TXST).

Texas State was recently awarded a grant by the US Department of Veterans Affairs to help share the stories of servicemen interred in veterans’ cemeteries.

TXST received $344,015 as part of the Veterans Legacy Program (VLP), a project meant to honor American Veterans and service members by sharing their stories to help preserve their legacy.

The grant is one of nine awarded to educational organizations by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA). Together they total $2.4 million.

Established in 2016, the VLP memorializes Veterans by helping communities preserve and share the histories of the Veterans interred in NCA cemeteries. It does this through educational outreach, encouraging students, educators, and citizens to connect with Veterans cemeteries and the Veterans laid to rest within them.

The grants provide funding for the nonprofits and institutions of higher learning to research American Veterans to learn about their service, accomplishments, and more. The projects funded by the grants will be used to help teach the histories of Veterans who bravely served their country.

TXST’s project is called “Texas Veterans Legacy for Tomorrow,” and will focus on Veterans interred at all four Texas State Veterans Cemeteries. The project will create publicly accessible educational resources that can be used by high school teachers, university professors, and community members alike.

What’s more, TXST’s project will not only be centered around Veterans; it will be carried out by them. The researchers will be Veterans themselves, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In order to conduct this research, TXST student Veterans will utilize social work methodologies and primary sources, particularly by obtaining interviews with other Veterans and their loved ones. The students will interview fellow vets who have lost comrades, whether they be students, alumni, or just members of the community, as well as the families of late veterans.

TexVet Legacy will train TXST student Veterans on best practices for interviewing Veteran families. They will also collect photo, video, and audio artifacts and important objects that help to tell the veterans’ stories. The stories will be uploaded to the Veteran Affairs Veteran Legacy Memorial and showcased at Texas State University.

We at the Veterans Land Board are dedicated to serving Texas Veterans. We salute Texas State University’s dedication to doing the same, and its receipt of the Veterans Legacy Program grant to carry out its project. We are proud of this Texas school for undertaking the important work of telling the stories of the service members interred in Texas State Veterans Cemeteries.

Those who wish to participate in an interview about or recommend an interred Veteran to feature can contact TXST at (512) 766–4020 or texvet@txstate.edu. These interviews can be conducted via phone, video call, or in person.