At five-foot-two, Ruthie Riedinger is one of the smaller members of Durango’s veteran family, but a vibrant fixture of
She’s often seated in the corner of the VFW bar at 1550 Main Ave. drinking white wine or on the dance floor encouraging bad karaoke on Friday nights.
Otherwise, she’s fulfilling her duties as junior vice-president of the Ladies Auxiliary, or traveling to funerals for Post No. 4031’s Honor Guard rifle drill team as its first female member in 70 years.
Four years ago, when she moved from the rural county into town, she found the VFW by accident.
“I remember sitting on the couch one day in my apartment thinking, I’m supposed to be doing something important, somewhere. But what am I supposed to be doing?” she said.
The first time she wandered into the post, she immediately made friends, and last year, the drill team asked her to join.
“It’s an honor to do this for our veterans, but I also do this for all women,” Riedinger said. “You know, you have to be as good or better than the men. I had to prove myself, and I did. And one of the most awesome parts is, I get to do this with my husband.”
The VFW led Riedinger to her husband, Fred Riedinger, who serves on the Honor Guard with her. A veteran, he traveled the world for 21 years in the Coast Guard. He proposed at a table in the VFW bar, and the two were married last July at the post, where he is Riedinger’s frequent dance partner.
As a dancer, Riedinger said she has all the qualities – “timing, choreography and discipline” – necessary and applicable to her duties in Honor Guard.
Though she never served in the military, Riedinger grew up with it and married into it twice.
Born in Los Angeles in 1944, Riedinger doesn’t remember World War II, but she heard plenty about it. She’s the youngest of eight children – six of her siblings were boys, and four enlisted. Two of them, in the Marines and Navy, saw action, and the household was always open to their military friends on leave.
At 19, Riedinger married her now ex-husband and moved from California to Washington, D.C., while he served two years, and the clash between 1960s counterculture and the Vietnam War left a lasting impression.
“We saw what was happening to our guys. That’s not something we think about a lot,” she said. “Back in the day, there was no help out there. There were people in Vietnam who didn’t want to be there, and then they weren’t welcomed when they came back.”
As a leader at the Ladies Auxiliary, Riedinger spends a lot of time now at the VFW, organizing the Saturday flea market, the annual Four Corners Veterans Stand Down, which offers services to local veterans, and other events. Otherwise, she’s traveling the region to honor servicemen and women- who died.
“Because of how I grew up, veterans have always been important to me, but the passion really started at the VFW,” Riedinger said. “There are so many men and women here that need help, and we all invest so much in it. They’re not just a bunch of old guys sitting around a bar talking about war stories – they don’t want to. It’s a family.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
