To the editor:

I was born in 1945. As a boy, my heroes were my daddy and his friends: the “greatest generation,” who had enlisted and risked all to liberate Europe from the Nazis. My favorite book was LIFE’s “Picture History of World War II,” and I would lie on the floor for hours turning its giant 10-by-14-inch pages crammed with black-and-white photos made by war correspondents, some of whom died making them.

I wasn’t old enough to vote for Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who led the Allies against the Nazis, but I would have. I did get to vote for Bob Dole, who fought against Benito Mussolini and the Fascists in Italy. In my eyes, Eisenhower and Dole were right up there with Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.

I share these memories in the hope that younger folks will maybe understand why it’s difficult for me to think that Ike and Bob fought on the wrong side, and hard for me to agree that “good people” would storm into the Capitol with swastikas and Confederate battle flags. Progress is never guaranteed: the Renaissance was followed by generations of religious wars. So, maybe the future does belong to Donald Trump and his Neo-Nazi fans. If so, I’m glad I won’t be around, and, while I can, I’ll live in the past. I like it there.

Dan V. Johnson,

Lawrence