Sticking up from the red dirt were several shovels with hard hats resting on top of them. The shovels and hard hats eerily resembled the type of memorial given to fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan when helmets are situated on top of the assault rifles of the soldier lost in combat.

The only thing missing was a pair of boots.

The shovels on this day sticking up from the rolling landscape of Newton County were there to signal a more celebratory occasion, albeit one that still honors the fallen. Local, state and federal officials, along with scores of veterans and current military personnel and representatives, gathered Thursday morning on the site of the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Cemetery between Hickory and Newton on Hwy. 80 to hold a groundbreaking ceremony marking the official start of construction. The 75-acre site will over the next several years be converted from rolling grazing land for cows to a place of honor for military veterans. The cemetery will be operated by the Mississippi Veteran's Affairs Board.

Mississippi Sen. Videt Carmichael, who along with several other dignitaries addressed the crowd of veterans and military personnel, said his role was small in helping to get the cemetery to this point of becoming reality.

"A great many people came together to make this happen," said Carmichael. "The reason this cemetery was done was in large part to thank those veterans who have done so much for us through their service. I'm proud to have been a part of this."

The complete facility will be built over three phases with the first phase (current construction) designed to accommodate approximately 5,000 burial sites and will include all administrative and maintenance buildings and other structures. Successive phases will be funded and built to accommodate additional burials, as needed, over an estimated 30 year period. The total allocation for the cemetery that was recently presented to the Mississippi Veteran's Affairs Board by the U.S. Secretary of Veteran's Affairs, State Cemetery Grant Service was $6.9 million.

Mississippi State University officials were instrumental in providing the acreage for the site and MSU President Dr. Mark Keenum was on hand to make a further announcement.

"We hope to be finalizing an additional ten acres to further enhance the cemetery," said Keenum. "We are extremely proud to be a part of this project. Mississippi has always been a state in which it has provided men and women to serve this great country to defend our peace and freedom."

Many of those in attendance, such as Col. Franklin Chalk, commander of the Mississippi Air National Guard's 186th Air Refueling Wing in Meridian, echoed the same thoughts in that the cemetery will allow veterans a hallowed and honorable place to rest easy.

"This cemetery offers veterans a uniqueness not often enjoyed in other locations," said Chalk.

Gen. William Freeman, commander of the Mississippi National Guard, said this was a great day for all vets.

"This cemetery will provide the dignity to the vets and provide a respectful place in which their families will be proud to visit them," Freeman said.

First interments are scheduled to be sometime in the Spring of 2011.