Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously in a Pentagon ceremony on Wednesday, October 6, 2010. He died in Afghanistan saving his fellow soldiers in an act of heroism that is honored as courage above and beyond the call of duty. Read more about this remarkable young man below and see his photos and a video about him.
Medal of Honor Recipient
Robert Miller, 24, received the Medal of Honor for his actions while stationed in Afghanistan’s northern Konar province, a remote region near the Pakistan border. The Green Beret, special forces Soldier to save his fellow soldiers in a battle with insurgents last year. Miller’s unit was ambushed in a predawn reconnaissance mission. Enemy fighters assaulted from above. Miller charged forward and drew fire away from his fellow soldiers.
Miller’s team was sent to the remote mountainous area to clear it of insurgents who had been terrorizing villagers. In the predawn hours of January 25, 2008, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller’s unit was ambushed in a predawn reconnaissance mission in Gowardesh. The enemy fighters attacked them from above. According the the Pentagon report, the battle lasted for seven-hours in Kunar Province. Miller was at the front of his team when the enemy opened fire. Most of his team were trapped in choke point and vulnerable to the heavy barrage of grenades and gunfire from the mountain above. Miller radioed to the team charged forward, drawing fire away from his fellow soldiers. He is said to have held off more than 150 enemy fighters. Even after he was shot, he continued returning fire while crawling up the snow covered mountain toward the insurgents, drawing fire away from the team and allowing them to move to a safer area.
Miller is credited with killing at least 10 insurgents and saving the lives of 7 American and 15 Afghan soldiers. He sacrificed his own life.
“Like so many times before, Rob was up front, leading a patrol of two dozen Afghans and Americans on a narrow trail along the valley floor,” the president recalled of Miller’s fateful day, “Within seconds, Rob and his patrol were pinned down with almost no cover, bullets and rocket- propelled grenades raining down from every direction.”
Noting that the odds were overwhelming – with his patrol only two dozen men against a pack of 150 insurgents, President Obama said that Miller held his ground and radioed back enemy positions with the enemy just feet away.
“Rob made a decision,” Obama said, “He called for his team to fall back. And then he did something extraordinary. Rob moved in the other direction, toward the enemy, drawing their guns away from his team and bringing the fire of all those insurgents down upon himself.”
The president said that Miller “seemed to disappear into clouds of dust and debris,” all the while his team could still hear him on the radio calling out enemy positions and hear his weapon firing as he provided cover for his men.
“And then, over the radio, they heard his voice. He had been hit. But still he kept calling out enemy positions. Still he kept firing. Still he kept throwing his grenades. And then heard it: Rob’s weapon fell silent.”
Robert J. Miller was the oldest son of Phil and Maureen Miller. His parents, his seven brothers and sisters and his fellow soldiers of the Company A, Third Battalion, Third Special Forces Group from Fort Bragg, N.C. attended the ceremony in the East Room of the White House in which President Obama presented the Miller’s Medal of Honor to his parents.
Sergeant Miller, 24, was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. He was a high school gymnast and athlete. He joined the Army in 2003, learned to speak Pashto and was a Green Beret. He was the youngest member of his Special Forces unit. He was on his second tour in Afghanistan when he was killed.
You can see a video of the ceremony for Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, Medal of Honor Recipient below. Pictures of Robert Miller can be found here. Videos are here.
I and probably a lot of others think it would be a lot nicer if you forgot the advertising BS when telling a story of an armed forces person killed in action, especially for a person that has earned and received the Medal of Honor!
@Dennis: That may be true, but advertising is what pays the bills that enable stories like this to be published.
Sure, you can read this on the ‘freebie’ blogs, but their reach isn’t as far.
So many more are able to read about this wonderful young man because of sites such as this.
Joe,
I think Dennis is saying that maybe your site can suck up the costs this time for this one hero! It is called “dedication”. It is what Robert J. Miller did for you and your website!!
@Dennis and Scott – I understand where you are coming from. The ads are on the website – site wide and unfortunately there is no way to take ads off one article.
I do appreciate your feelings about it though.
BTW Dennis and Scott – you are preaching to the choir (as they say down here). Both Jo and I have loved ones serving. In my case, my own son. I have a DEEP appreciation for the sacrifice these young men are making for us. I won’t NOT write about them just because there are ads on this website.
Thank you
Sounds like neither of these boys is familiar with “don’t kill the messenger”.
What’s really sad is that the only thing you can talk about on this post is the ads. Did you read the story?
So young.
I was watching the news today and a guy was saying how the Obama health care was going to let parents keep children 25 and younger on their heath insurance. Robert Miller was 24 and he was no child. From the looks of it he had been a man for quite some time. Maybe if more people joined the military we’d have fewer 25 year old “children” in this country.
I heard about this National Hero and I wanted to know more information. Advertisements or not this was a good informative site and thank you. It seems to me that no matter what “good thing” a person may do there is always someone there to put it down. So thank you Beth, my thoughts are with you and your family who are serving. Kendra, I too have thought that if we had everyone serve at least two years in the military it would make things a little better. But I’m not too sure about how it would be on the Military itself. There will always be people who don’t want to be there and won’t give their life like Robert Miller did and I would not want to go to war or one of my family members to go to war with someone like that. I think the reason that our Army is as strong as it is is because of the volunteers that actually want to help and be apart of something bigger than themselves. It’s called selfless service and unfortunatly not all people have that trait. Thank goodness for all the Soldiers and loved ones of those Soldiers that Robert Miller was with that he had a sense of selfless service.
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[...] You can read the rest of SSgt. Miller’s story here. [...]
[...] You can read the rest of SSgt. Miller’s story here. [...]
freedom has a taste, and those who have fought for it, the taste is so sweet THE PROTECTED WILL NEVER KNOW. GEN. GEORGE S. PATTON jr. im reminded of the last words of the famous poem ” gungd din ” and i ask the question could i or you do what this man has done ? with all the critics howling about and about—–” thought we have belted you and flayed you, by the living GOD that made you ,YOUR A BETTER MAN THAN I AM–GUNGA DIN “. are you all aware of why this hero was back in afganistan for a second tour ?? because we are chewing up our troops with much longer periods of deployment in ww 1 you were in combat no longer than 6 mos. in ww 11 it was no longer than 8 months in korea 12 months vietnam 12 months but now our people are there for as long as 15 months then they come home for 6 months then are sent back to the war zone for another 15 months. can you imagine how these women and men feel having to go back to that 12th century country to fight for a people who dont want us there ?? and how about there wives and family’s yet they never complain. why ? because they know that to keep the barbarians from coming here again to do wholesale slaughter we must take the fight to them and ultimately put every gun to them so they will feel the extreme high cost of killing americans. does this sound extreme to you ? then close your eye’s for a moment and reimage the sights and sounds from 09-11 with over 3000 civilians innocents not just killed but terrorised first then slaughtered, and not just slaughtered but assasinated and finally see, if you agree one of the biggest mistakes that america is making is that we are not teaching our childern what it means to be an american