Gene Maul, an Air Force veteran, came up with the idea to organize a lawn mower ride last year, when six riders made the trip and raised $2,400 for Gulf War veterans and veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the VA Medical Center in Battle Creek, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported.
Maul said he was upset that so few Americans seem to know or care about the ongoing wars, which have claimed the lives of 5,000 service members over the last eight years, with many times that injured.
"People don't even know there's a war going on," Maul said, according to the Gazette. "[W]e've got guys coming back from there maimed and blind and everything else and people don't even know it."
In a posting on Craigslist advertising the ride, the organizers ask people to come out "come and show your support, if nothing more than standing with a flag at the end of your driveways as the benefit passes."
