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My father, Carl Ruzek, was a disabled WWII Army veteran, who served over two years in the South Pacific theater. He could have received a deferment to work on the family farm but he decided to enlist at the age of 28.

It makes me cringe when I hear that then-President Trump during a 2018 trip to France canceled a side trip to an American military cemetery outside of Paris and asked staff aides: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

During the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 U.S. Marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood (WWI) as “suckers” for getting killed.

During a Memorial Day ceremony in 2017 at Arlington National Cemetery, Trump accompanied his White House chief of staff, Ret. Gen. John Kelly, to the gravesite of Kelly’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan. Trump asked, “What was in it for him?”

Regarding John McCain, Trump said in 2015: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured (in Vietnam War). I like people who weren’t captured.”

And, according to Gen. Kelly, Trump also said that he didn’t want wounded veterans in his military parades because it wouldn’t look “good.” Kelly also said Trump commented more than once that, “You know, Hitler did some good things, too!”

So, if you look at the names of veterans (past and present) enshrined at the Mower County Veterans Memorial (presently being renovated) or if you visit a military cemetery, are the above words/thoughts from Trump something that would come to your mind?

Trump is not fit to again be Commander-In-Chief of the finest Armed Services in the world.

Dave Ruzek

Austin, MN