STATEN ISLAND — The president of Poland honored a Staten Island soldier who died shielding a Polish soldier from a suicide bomber in an Independence Day letter to President Donald Trump.
President Andrezj Duda mentioned Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis to show the "close relationship" between the countries in the letter to Trump days before his Thursday visit to Warsaw.
"The additional, undoubted, strengthening element in our close relationship is the fraternity of arms among our soldiers, forged in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hotspots of the modern world," Duda wrote in the letter.
"Especially, the action of a 24-year-old Staff Sergeant Michael H. Ollis, who during the Taliban attack on the base in Ghazni in August 2013, Afghanistan, gave his life shielding with his own body a Polish Lieutenant Karol Cierpica, was firmly imprinted in the collective memory of the Polish people."
One of three new Staten Island Ferry boats headed to the city will also bear Ollis' name and the entire class of boats will be named after him.
In his speech Thursday, Trump argued the future of Western civilization is in danger from threats of "terrorism and extremism," the BBC reported.
Ollis, a lifelong New Dorp resident, died in 2013 after he stepped in front of Cierpica and blocked him from a blast from a suicide vest an insurgent was wearing during the assault on the Afghanistan base.
"We are proud and honored to have Michael’s name and heroic sacrifice invoked by President Duda of Poland as a testament to the strong bonds of fellowship between the United States and Poland," his parents, Robert and Linda Ollis, said in a statement.
"Michael selflessly gave his life to shield his fellow soldier, Karol Cierpica of Poland, because that’s who he was, and we are so grateful to the Polish government and people for continuing to honor Michael’s memory and helping us tell his amazing story."
Ollis was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Silver Star, the Audie Murphy Medallion and the Polish Armed Forces Gold Medal, the highest honor the country gives to foreign soldiers.
Cierpica also named his son after Ollis, the New York Post reported.
