{"id":127273,"date":"2026-05-03T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/legion-riders-honor-fallen-heros-homecoming\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:00:00","slug":"legion-riders-honor-fallen-heros-homecoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/legion-riders-honor-fallen-heros-homecoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Legion riders honor fallen hero\u2019s homecoming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft naviga-size-small\" data-naviga-align=\"left\" data-naviga-size=\"small\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ba4ce41-a358-5d9b-b360-ebd942a1f4df&#038;function=cover&#038;type=preview&#038;source=false&#038;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ba4ce41-a358-5d9b-b360-ebd942a1f4df&#038;function=cover&#038;type=preview&#038;source=false&#038;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ba4ce41-a358-5d9b-b360-ebd942a1f4df&#038;function=cover&#038;type=preview&#038;source=false&#038;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ba4ce41-a358-5d9b-b360-ebd942a1f4df&#038;function=cover&#038;type=preview&#038;source=false&#038;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"1680\" height=\"958\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Last week, the family of Willibald Bianchi requested that the American Legion Riders Post 132 escort his remains home to New Ulm. We were part of this escort.<\/p>\n<p>To say that this was an experience of a lifetime would not be enough words to cover it. On the way home from the airport, there were fire trucks, vehicles and people on the overpasses on the highway \u2013 people waving flags, putting their hands over their hearts, saluting, many with handmade signs \u2013 and people pulling their vehicles to the side of the road to welcome him back home.<\/p>\n<p>We can truthfully say we will never forget this emotional experience, and we are truly grateful to the family for including us in this journey to his resting place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lynae and Tom Flatau<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-9a68d5cedba04832f9fc4adbe3a0cba8\">New Ulm, Minnesota<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-ab68061ed8dc5e9f379f362ef6448aef\">Editor\u2019s note: Capt. Willibald Bianchi was a New Ulm native and Medal of Honor recipient killed in 1945 when a prison ship was sunk in the Philippines. His remains were identified earlier this year after 80 years.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>week, the family of Willibald Bianchi requested that the American Legion Riders Post 132 escort his remains home to New Ulm. We were part of this escort. To say that this was an experience of a lifetime would not be enough words to cover it. On the way home from the airport, there were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5820,5819],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-127273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor","category-opinion","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127273"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=127273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}