To the editor:

Thank you for your list of “these men and women of Douglas County who made the ultimate sacrifice in serving our country.” Reading their names, we can reflect and honor their memory.

Last year, President Donald Trump went off playing golf, because those people were “loosers,” and he preferred “alive solders.”

My mother, Kazimiera Piekalkiewicz, a lieutenant in the resistance to German-occupied Poland and my uncle, Jan Piekalkiewicz, the leader of the civilian branch, were arrested by the Gestapo and executed. They were not “loosers”; they were unlucky.

My first combat corpse in the Warsaw 1944 anti-German uprising was my platoon leader, Lt. Alexander Swiderski. He was killed by a sniper. He was not a “looser”; he was just unlucky. Days later, the sniper nearly got me. But I was lucky. Trump will never understand that, because neither he nor any of his family served in the military.

My son, Andrew, served bravely in Afghanistan and came back with the satisfaction that he did his duty to his country and democracy honorably.

Serving in the military during wartime is a “Dance with Death,” the title of my last book.

Jaroslaw Piekalkiewicz,

Lawrence