Monday, May 5, 2014
By April Grant, Leesburg Today

Five men donning bright green shirts that read “Sam’s Ride for Peace” stopped in the Leesburg Beer Company Friday. The group, led by 88-year-old World War II vet Samuel Winstead, was headed to Washington, DC, on a Ride for Peace bike mission that began April 27 in North Carolina.

The protest ride, which calls for U.S. leaders to put an end to all wars, is Winstead’s third peace ride. His first, in 2012, was prompted by a conversation with his grandson who at the time was stationed in Iraq.

“He said ‘granddad I don’t know why we’re over here, they don’t want us here, and we’re just tearing this country apart,’” Winstead recalled. “This was entirely different than the war we fought…I felt like I had to do something to call attention to what we were doing.”

Sam’s Ride for Peace is sponsored by Veterans for Peace, the national organization that works to seek justice for veterans and increase public awareness about the impacts of war.

Read the full article here.