WATERLOO, Iowa (KCRG) - Laura Benson from Evansdale has made it her mission to clean and log the location of all the Veteran grave sites at Fairview Cemetery in Waterloo.

At first Benson cleaned each of her family member’s headstones using a special chemical called D2.

“The D2 takes about 15 minutes to activate. And I thought: ‘Well, why don’t I just walk around and spray the veterans while I’m waiting?’ Benson said.

The more she worked on the headstones, the more Veteran stones she found that were covered in lichens and algae.

“I just kept walking and I kept running into Civil War stones that I couldn’t read. And I’m like: ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ Benson said.

That inspired Benson to make it her mission to clean each Veteran grave marker she could find.

Benson also takes a photo of

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