Temple moments: Rewards of service
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Being a career Air Force officer brought with it challenges and rewards for Richard Merkling, who retired in 1983 after a distinguished career in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and in Europe. A fighter pilot, he flew 335 combat missions.
"Once people realized my beliefs and what I expected, they went out of the way to accommodate my beliefs," he said of his years in the military.
While commander of Korat AFB in Thailand, he also served as LDS group leader. There, he met newly baptized Wesley White, an Airman who was introduced to the gospel by his girlfriend, Lois Young, herself a recent convert. Brother Merkling ordained the young airman a deacon and teacher. Brother White later left the service, and married his girlfriend in the Manti Utah Temple, and they had three sons and two daughters.
Col. Merkling went on to Europe where he became a brigadier general, then a three-star general, and was deputy chief of the NATO 4th Allied Tactical Air Force in Europe. While he was in Germany, local leaders asked him to help build a meetinghouse in Hahn, Germany, from an old government building. Every Friday for a year, he rounded up a crew of LDS volunteers and friends and spent the next two days working, every week until until the building was complete.
He retired to Albuquerque, N.M., and was called as a temple sealer. In 2004, an old acquaintance looked him up. It was Wesley White, now a member of the Volcano Cliffs Ward, Albuquerque New Mexico West Stake. His youngest daughter, Sara, had met an LDS Airman from nearby Cannon Air Force Base, David Brunner. They asked Brother Merkling to again use his priesthood authority to bless their family, this time as a temple sealer.
"It was a tender moment to be asked to be part of that," said the retired general. "It was a real blessing, an honor to be asked."
Sister White and Sister Merkling joined to help "a radiant Sara" in the bride's room, March 27, 2004.
When the couple was sealed, surrounded by family and old friends, "what a joyful occasion it was," said Brother White. — John L. Hart
