Staff Sergeant Robert James Miller was born on October 14, 1983, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was the second of eight children of Phil and Maureen Miller and was named for his two grandfathers, Robert Miller and James Morgan, both of whom served in World War II. Rob was proud that his family’s service to the nation reached back to the Revolutionary War. He took his first steps at seven months old, and his family remembers that he never slowed his pace. Some of his earliest friends were the children of Cambodian refugees, and the stories they told about the Pol Pot years left him with an early understanding that there were very bad people in the world.
When Rob was five, the family moved to Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He attended Emerson Elementary School and then St. Michael School, played baseball and basketball, ran track, joined the Boy Scouts and played trumpet in the band. He loved history. For an eighth-grade assignment to interview a veteran, he sought out his parents’ former chaplain, who had served as a medic during the Second World War, rather than taking the easy route. At Wheaton North High School he returned to gymnastics with real passion. He was co-captain of the team in his junior and senior years and helped lead it to fifth place in the state tournament. He paid for his own lessons by working at a local gym, first as a late-night janitor and then as a coach, where he was trusted to teach several children with autism. He switched from trumpet to tuba, came to love classical music and taught himself Latin and other languages.
Rob had long planned to serve. He hoped to attend the Naval Academy until colorblindness closed that door, and the attacks of September 11, 2001, only strengthened his resolve. He spent the 2002–2003 school year at the University of Iowa, where he trained with the gymnastics team. His family recalls that when two students crumpled the American flag after a meet and tossed it into a closet, Rob made them retrieve it and then showed them how to fold it properly.
Shortly after his family moved to Oviedo, Florida, Rob enlisted on August 14, 2003, as a Special Forces candidate. He completed infantry training and Airborne School at Fort Benning, graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course on September 26, 2004, and finished the Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Course on March 4, 2005. After completing French language training, he was promoted to sergeant and assigned on September 30, 2005, to Company A, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg. He also earned the Ranger Tab. Off duty, he became an avid surfer on the North Carolina coast. Friends said that at his condo you might find him cooking a gourmet meal to classical music or cleaning a weapon with hard rock playing.
Rob first deployed to Afghanistan from August 2006 to March 2007 and earned two Army Commendation Medals for Valor for courage under fire. He returned in October 2007 as a weapons sergeant on Operational Detachment Alpha 3312. In the pre-dawn hours of January 25, 2008, his team and their Afghan National Army partners conducted a combat reconnaissance patrol through the Gowardesh Valley in Kunar Province. When the patrol engaged insurgents in prepared fighting positions, Staff Sergeant Miller opened the assault with his vehicle’s Mk 19 grenade launcher while calling precise enemy locations to his command for close air support. As more than one hundred enemy fighters opened fire, he was wounded in the upper torso. He kept fighting and deliberately drew the enemy’s fire toward himself so his teammates could reach cover. He killed at least ten insurgents and wounded many more before he was mortally wounded. His actions saved the lives of seven members of his team and fifteen Afghan soldiers. He was 24 years old.
On October 6, 2010, President Barack Obama presented the Medal of Honor to Phil and Maureen Miller in the East Room of the White House. The President spoke of a young man who was wise beyond his years and recalled the poem Rob wrote as a boy about American soldiers in World War II who “fought day and night, fighting for what they thought was right.” His decorations also include the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal with “V” device, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the NATO Medal, the Special Forces Tab, the Ranger Tab and the Parachutist Badge.
Rob is remembered as a loyal friend, a caring son and brother and a patriot with a rare zest for life. He is survived by his parents, Phil and Maureen Miller, his brothers Thomas, Martin and Edward and his sisters Joanna, Mary, Therese and Patricia. As one teammate said, “I would not be alive today if not for his ultimate sacrifice.”
When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, there was no doubt Rob Miller and his team had struck a major blow against the local insurgency. Five members of his patrol had been wounded, but his team had survived. And one of his teammates surely spoke for all of them when he said of Rob, “I would not be alive today if not for his ultimate sacrifice.
Former President of the United States of America, Barack Obama
Sources
- U.S. Army: Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller, Medal of Honor
- U.S. Army: Medal of Honor citation, SSG Robert J. Miller
- U.S. Army: Staff Sgt. Robert James Miller official biography (PDF)
- U.S. Army / AFPS: President Obama to award Medal of Honor (Sept. 9, 2010)
- The White House: Remarks by the President awarding the Medal of Honor to SSG Robert Miller (Oct. 6, 2010)
- Family-provided records on file with MVF: Robbie Miller Bio.docx (family and Army biography)
