More about Miller and his and Johnson’s reaction to Lynch.
“Johnson, his fellow POW from the 507th, couldn’t recall anything particularly special about Miller when they were stationed together at Fort Bliss, Texas, in the months before they headed off to war. “A down-to-earth country boy,” Johnson remembered with a laugh. “He likes his chew. That’s all I remember about Pat: He had that chew in his mouth.”
Miller now spends his days toiling in a motor pool as part of the 2nd Company of the 43rd Area Support Group. Because most of the unit’s heavy equipment has been shipped over to Iraq, his welding torch has been cold. Recently, he has been cutting the grass and slathering brown and white paint on the building’s interior walls. Every so often, a fellow soldier will quiz him about his service in Iraq.
A $25,000-a-year private first class, Miller lives in a modest three-bedroom townhouse on base with his wife, Jessa,, and two children, 4-year-old Tyler and 14-month-old Makenzie. The children are in day care while his wife works making glasses for LensCrafters. One day, Miller hopes to rise to a higher enlisted rank — an Army warrant officer — and oversee a maintenance shop, perhaps putting in 20 years.
But the fact that Miller remains an unknown grates on Johnson and some in Miller’s family.
“Jessica’s a wonderful girl, and we’re happy she’s OK,” Johnson said. “But it was Patrick; it wasn’t Jessica. His weapon was working. He was doing everything possible. Patrick deserves so much, and he’s not getting the recognition. He’s still a private first class. He hasn’t even been promoted.”
Miller flopped on the plaid couch. He said he wants to put the entire Iraqi episode behind him and get on with his life. Play with his kids. Work on his car. Complete the paperwork for the warrant officer program.
He is asked about the fame of Lynch and how her celebrity has eclipsed his heroics. He summed it all up with a shrug. “She’s female. I’m male. It’s expected of me,” he said. Still, like some others in his company, he harbors a gnawing resentment that Lynch has emerged as the only story in the 507th.
“It just gets me how she gets credit for something she didn’t do,” he finally said. “We were all in the same unit.”
That’s not all —Lynch had posed TOPLESS in her platoon bay, both before and after her capture. By huge coincidence just the other day the photos turned up, with a big account of it all.
I think that pornographer Larry Flynt was going to publish them.
MILLER WAS THE HERO.