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By DON KEOWN Patriotism has suffered a serious decline in the United States, believes Richard H. Miehling of San Rafael, and the country is the poorer for it. “If you take off your hat now when the flag passes, people think you are a knucklehead,”’ he says. To Miehling this loss of pride in country and flag becomes particu larly evident and painful at the time of a national holiday such as Memo rial Day. Miehling belongs to Hepburn Wilk ins Post 37, American Legion, one of the organizations that make up the Marin County Veterans Council which, in an effort to keep the fires of patriotism burning, will be a sponsor of Memorial Day ceremo nies at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Marin Veterans Memorial Building, San Rafael There will be a speaker, Lt. Gen. William R. Peers, retired, and a program including music by the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District Non-Marching Band, plus a massing of colors by participating organiza tions for a parade to the Doughboy Statue nearby. Wreaths and flowers will be laid as tributes to the coun ty’s war dead. Miehbling emphasizes the May 30 date, the day long recognized as Memorial Day, and not May 31, Monday, designated on the calen dars as Memorial Day as part of the trend toward three-day holiday weekends. “It all contributes to the loss of the original meaning of these holi days,’ he says. And adds: ‘“‘When they move the Fourth of July to a Monday, regardless of the date, I’ll know our freedoms have really gone down the drain.” Miehling’s patriotism is rooted in a long association with America’s civic, veterans and military affairs. Born in San Francisco in 1899, he left high school as a 16-year-old to work for the San Francisco Fire Department, and then, still as a teenager, for Southern Pacific as a brakeman. With the involvement of the Unit ed States in World War I, he enlisted in the Army, and a month later found himself overseas in France with the 61st Railroad Operating Engineers. During his 18 months abroad, Miehling worked as a conductor on trains of boxcars hauling American soldiers to and from the fighting front. But he also served on trains that transported 16-inch naval guns and their crews to within range of German lines and installations, of ten under heavy enemy bombard ment. One result of this exposure to artillery fire was a loss of hearing in both ears. He wears hearing aids, furnished by the Veterans Adminis tration. He was also exposed to poisonous mustard gas, ‘‘although fortunately I got my gas mask on,” and lasting damage was limited to a shortness of breath. Miehling has stories about the difficulty of operating the big Amer ican Baldwin locomotives and box cars on the French tracks, as well as stories of enduring the pounding of Germany’s Big Bertha cannon. Back in this country, Miehling was hospitalized with spinal meningitis. When he left the hospital in the summer of 1919 it was to travel to Paris, still in uniform, as the repre sentative of his outfit, by then known as the 57th Company Rail road Engineers, 16th Grand Divi sion, at a meeting called to organize veterans and soon-to-be veterans. Thus, Richard Miehling was in on the birth of the American Legion, and began his association of more than a half century with the organi zation. He recalls the organizational ses sions in Paris’ Opera House vividly. “There was a lot of high-powered brass on hand, and I couldn’t help wondering what I, a lowly private first class, was doing in that kind of company. Nevertheless, Miehling listened at tentively to the speeches and the planning. He remembers a suggestion that the new organization be called Vet erans of the Great War. But Ameri can Legion — ‘I think it was suggested by Kermit Roosevelt” prevailed as the name. And the United States Congress issued its charter in that name. Back in the U.S. with an honorable discharge, Miehling came to Marin County where his father had gone to work at San Quentin Prison as a guard. Wilkins Post 37 was being organ ized in Marin. Fifteen ex-service men signed the charter application in August, 1919, and that October, Richard Miehling became a mem ber He recalls a bitter rivalry in those early years for the leadership of the new post. Thomas L. Lennon served as the post’s first commander in 1919 and 1920. But the election that Miehling remembers best occurred in 1921 in the Wilkins Hotel ‘‘where the entire top floor, with a large meeting room, a pool room, a card room and a canteen, had been turned over to us. Rivals for the commander post were incumbent Lennon and Capt. H. H. Hearfield. The two opposing factions were known as “the red bloods’’ and ‘‘the blue bloods.” Hearfield won the election, but there were hot words and many of the more than 350 members quit the group. A nucleus of about 15 veterans continued to keep the organization and the charter active. Miehling recalls such men as Herb Walton Sr., Al Stewart, Sam Heiman, Bill Crane, George Shecklin, Dr. Rafael Duffiey Sr., Joe Soldavini and Cliff Sanford as among the faithful. Jack Sheehy, the 1922 Wilkins Post commander, was later to start San Anselmo Post 179. In about 1925, Miehling says, he and Fred D. White, a disabled veter an, began to canvass door to door for Legion members, and the Wilk ins Post roster began to grow again. He recalls with a laugh the young fellow he stopped, who assured him that he was, indeed, an Army veter an and interested in joining the Legion. “But when we began to fill out the membership form, I learned it was the German Army in which he had Continued on page 29 Miehling as doughboy ‘somewhere in France’
Newspaper Details
San Rafael Independent Journal
San Rafael, California, US
Sat, May 29, 1976
Page 26
Full Page
Clipped by
S S.
USA 09 Feb 2026
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