Gilgamesh Free State Cemetery

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A row of headstones at the Gilgamesh Free State Cemetery

The Gilgamesh Free State Cemetery outside New Belgrade was the final resting place of those who served in the military of the Gilgamesh Free State and its associated paramilitaries from its establishment as a political party in the late 2400s to those who had served in the UEG-aligned Free State. While it was not the only military cemetery in the Free State, it was by far the largest at nearly 200 acres. Located in the wilderness just outside of the capital, the ground the cemetery was situated on saw the last stand of the 7th Infantry Regiment, sometimes lumped in with the Battle of Charnov Forest as one of the most iconic moments of valor displayed by the Gilgamesh Free Army.

Initially, the cemetery was simply a mass grave for the troops of the 7th IR dug by UNSC Army, with a small instacrete cross marking the spot. With the repression of any pro-GFS imagery by the post-UNSC-GFS War planetary government, attempts to create a full memorial to the troops in the area were stifled. This continued until July 2567, when, in the aftermath of the Outer Colonies Crisis, Gilgamesh gained the status of Independent Commonwealth, and a general amnesty was issued for all former and current Insurrectionists, effectively rehabilitating all fallen GFAF soldiers.

By August of that year, the new government had passed an ordinance to set up an official cemetery for those who had served the Gilgamesh Free State. Over the next several years, with the aid of the Galactic Red Cross and the UNSC Army, bodies of other rebel fighters were recovered from the battlefields on Gilgamesh and interred in the cemetery, causing it to grow exponentially.

Cemetery

The cemetery itself is separated into six plots, with four situated in a square, and the other two offset on either side, with two intersecting paths running through the square, with a flagpole in the center. The longer path, running east to west, leads to the cemetery's chapel, which contains the Heroes' Crypt. The Crypt contains the remains of those deemed especially worth of remembrance by the Gilgamesh Free State, including those of Marshal Edward Garan, Sergeant Louis Jacowitz, Colonel Kevin Mathurin, and the Unknown Soldier. Each of those in the underground crypt, in contrast to the white headstones elsewhere in the cemetery, have their resting places marked with a gray rock salt effigy of them, representing the tears of sadness shed at the fall of the Free State and those of happiness when it was reestablished. The only exception to this in the Crypt is that of the Unknown Soldier, whose grave is marked with a special memorial of a golden wreaths surrounded by several eternal flames.

The other path, running south to north, leads to the UNSC-GFS War Memorial, a replica of the Corley Cenotaph, though with two extra memorials flanking it, one to the Forgotten Soldiers, and another to the victims of Operation: WHITE DOVE.