Patriot of the Week: Chuck Riffel

This week's Patriot honor goes to a 93-year-old Korean War veteran who never stopped serving his country long after he took off the uniform -- he just started serving it from a folding chair at the American Legion instead.

Charles "Chuck" Riffel of Hayden, Idaho, is one of the few living Korean War veterans left in North Idaho, and this July 4 he was named Coeur d'Alene's 2026 Military Hero of the Year, honored during the city's American Heroes Parade in front of tens of thousands of spectators as part of the nation's 250th birthday celebration. But the honor wasn't really about what Riffel did in Korea 70-odd years ago -- it was about everything he's done since.

A longtime member of American Legion Post 14, Riffel has spent decades quietly organizing, mentoring, and showing up for fellow veterans in North Idaho -- the kind of steady, unglamorous work that rarely makes headlines but holds a community together. He still shows up for the twice-weekly veterans' breakfast at a local diner, where a small group of former soldiers, sailors, and Marines gather over coffee to swap stories and remember the men who didn't come home. Friends describe him as wise, kind, and quick with a joke, and say he's spent years pushing others to get more involved in veteran organizations rather than talking about his own service.

"Chuck's story reminds us that patriotism is not confined to one's years in uniform -- it is a lifelong commitment to serving others."

That's Linda Coppess, president and CEO of the Coeur d'Alene Regional Chamber, explaining the honor. Last year's Military Hero of the Year, Stephen Durfee, put it just as simply: Riffel is "a role model not just for veterans, but for all of us."

---

No battlefield this time -- just seven decades of showing up for the people who wore the uniform beside him. That's patriotism with no expiration date. Salute Chuck Riffel, America.

Source: Coeur d'Alene Press, The American Legion