SSG ROBERT J. MILLER, MEDAL OF HONOR, AFGHANISTAN

This one slipped under my radar screen somehow - S.L.

MEDAL OF HONOR TO GREEN BERET KILLED IN AFGHAN WAR

SSG Robert J. Miller, MOH

WASHINGTON (AP) October 6, 2010- In a ceremony that mixed pain, pride and determination, President Barack Obama on Wednesday awarded the Medal of Honor to a young Army Green Beret who saved his patrol by holding off a Taliban ambush in a snowy Afghan valley two winters ago.

He told the parents of Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, "You gave your oldest son to America, and America is forever in your debt." Miller was killed in the ambush.

Miller, 24, was a Pashto-speaking Special Forces weapons expert who led a joint U.S.-Afghan patrol _ and allied aircraft _ in attacking a suspected Taliban compound in northwest Afghanistan's Kunar province, near the Pakistani border.

In pre-dawn darkness on Jan. 25, 2008, his patrol was moving in to survey the damage when a much larger Taliban force opened fire. After ordering his comrades to fall back, Miller rushed forward, firing his weapon and hurling grenades in a bid to draw off the enemy attack. In ferocious fighting, Miller seemed to disappear into clouds of dust and debris, but his team could hear him on the radio, still calling out the enemy's position . . . And then, over the radio, they heard his voice. He had been hit.

Accepting the award from Obama were Miller's parents, Philip and Maureen Miller, while all seven of his brothers and sisters _ and 12 members of his patrol _ looked on. Obama noted Miller's brother Tom is currently undergoing Green Beret training.

Miller, a native of Harrisburg, Pa., was the third U.S. service member from the Afghan conflict to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest medal for gallantry

Honor him.



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