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Medal of Honor: Colleagues recall heroics of 'happy warrior' The ambush started with a shout of "Allah akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great." Then the bullets poured in on Staff Sgt. Robby Miller's Special Forces team and the Afghan soldiers with it. What Miller did on that remote, rocky Afghan battlefield that day more than two years ago cost him his life. His actions saved the lives of seven other soldiers and merited the nation's highest military decoration.
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'Happy warrior' Miller's parents describe him as a "happy warrior," but at first glance, he might not have come across as a likely war hero. He was about 5-foot-8 and "wiry strong," according to Staff Sgt. Nick McGarry. The two went through Special Forces training together, so McGarry was glad to see him when he arrived for duty with Company A, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. They became close friends. McGarry said Miller was into anything physical, from surfing to mountain biking. "He was a young stud," said Maj. Robert Cusick, who was Miller's team leader as a captain in Afghanistan. "He did gymnastics, which we found out about halfway through the trip. He was just a young guy with a lot of energy. Whenever it came to the physical stuff, that was easy for Robby." Miller was the oldest son and second-oldest of eight children born to Phil and Maureen Miller. He may have gained an appreciation for history and other cultures while playing with children of Cambodian refugees while growing up in Harrisburg, Pa., his parents said. He attended high school in Wheaton, Ill., and joined the Army shortly after his family moved to Oviedo, Fla. Miller was just 24 and had been in the military for less than five years when he died. He joined the Army in 2003, under the 18X enlistment option. That's a path that allows people "off the street" to compete for a spot in Special Forces without first having to spend several years in the Army. He liked to excel, and he liked challenges and "the harder route," his father said. There is no guarantee that "X-ray" candidates, as they are known, will make it into the ranks of the Green Berets. The selection process just to get into Special Forces training is grueling. Then the training itself is intense. The "X-rays" make it through Special Forces training at about the same rate - about 30 percent - as soldiers who already have spent time in the Army. About 1,500 of them are now serving in Special Forces, said Maj. Dave Butler, a spokesman for the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. The program, begun during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has had skeptics who have questioned the quality of candidates who don't have Army experience. Master Sgt. Jim Lodyga, who was Miller's team sergeant in Afghanistan, said he was working at the JFK Center when the first of the "X-rays" went through training. "Without making any kind of a comment on the 18X-ray program, ... you can see there are success stories," Lodyga said. "Robby is one of those unique individuals. I don't care if he came in as an 18X-ray or if he was in the 82nd (Airborne Division) for five years and then switched over to SF or if he was a clerk-typist somewhere. He would have done the same thing." By all accounts, Miller was an impressive soldier even before the actions that earned him the Medal of Honor. He was a weapons sergeant, as was McGarry. They are expected to know everything about domestic and foreign weapons so they can teach people in foreign countries or use them when the need arises. Miller would take weapons apart, reassemble them and fire them for hours, McGarry said. Miller pushed McGarry to get better. Special Forces soldiers train to work with military forces in foreign countries. Miller taught himself Pashtu, a common language in Afghanistan, to help him build rapport with villagers.
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Patrol leader
Since he could communicate with Afghans without an interpreter, Miller was at the head of the patrol within a few miles of the Pakistan border in the early morning hours of Jan. 25, 2008. He and the other soldiers had been awake for about 36 hours when they were ambushed. The eight U.S. troops and 15 Afghan soldiers were facing 50 to 75 insurgents. After years of war, the enemy had become smart about hiding to make its location hard for U.S. aircraft to find and attack. The cloudy weather at that time of year also made it difficult for medical evacuation helicopters to fly. The outnumbered U.S. and Afghan soldiers were under fire from assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Everybody at the front got down and started shooting back, Lodyga said. Miller yelled back to his other team members where the enemy was, how far away and how many of them were where.
Miller moved toward the enemy under heavy fire, allowing his outnumbered teammates to gain better positions. The enemy was shooting from the north, east and south. By himself, Miller handled the enemy on the south. "He pretty much had this whole side locked down for us," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joe Wilson, the assistant detachment commander. "If he would not have been engaging anyone on this side, these guys could have moved around, hit us, and that would have been all for us." The detachment commander, team sergeant and warrant officer decided to pull back. "Why Staff Sgt. Miller stayed up front and continued to move forward - again, that's just one of the things that to this day I don't think we're ever going to know," said Cusick, the team captain. "His actions allowed both the Afghan forces and the detachment to break contact and consolidate." Cusick was shot in the chest. "Once I went into shock, I was no longer in command," Cusick said. "Initially, I was still able to make conscious decisions." At first, no one could move to help the captain because so many bullets were hitting around him, Lodyga said. Miller was firing an M249 machine gun, and its muzzle flash drew the enemy's attention from the wounded captain, Lodyga said. "Robby, without hesitation, continued to engage the enemy, picked up his volume of fire, which allowed us to move Capt. Cusick out of the kill zone," said Lodyga. "We were greatly outnumbered," Lodyga said. "The fact that Robby kept moving towards the enemy, kept taking the fight to them, allowed the rest of the ODA to get better positions, to engage the enemy." Miller was telling his teammates to "bound back" while he stayed, McGarry said. "As he is saying, 'Bound back!' he is staying up there himself and taking the fight to the enemy," McGarry said. "He knew what he was doing. He was putting himself out there to protect the rest of the patrol that was behind him." Miller was shot under the right armpit. He turned and killed the enemy fighter who shot him, Lodyga said. "At that point, Robby didn't stop," Lodyga said. "He continued to fire. He continued to take the fight to the enemy. He threw at least one or two grenades during the battle." The team lost contact with Miller, and aircraft arrived to help with the fight. Reinforcements may have brought the number of enemy fighters to as many as 200 against the team, which had dwindled to six fighters. A medical evacuation helicopter arrived to take away the captain. A quick-reaction force arrived to assist the Americans. At some point during the seven-hour battle, Miller received a fatal gunshot wound under his left armpit, Lodyga said. "Robby was the typical team player," Lodyga said. "He's definitely not selfish at all. He's more concerned about the greater good. He knows we are there as a unit. He knows that we fight as a unit, as a team, as one big individual, not 70 individuals out there."
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Medal decision
On Sept. 9, the White House said that the president will posthumously award the Medal of Honor to Miller on Wednesday. His parents will accept the medal. In announcing the medal decision, the White House said: "He displayed immeasurable courage and uncommon valor - eventually sacrificing his own life to save the lives of his teammates and 15 Afghanistan National Army soldiers." His parents said the announcement was a "relief" after months of wondering what would come of the award process. "It's not just about Rob," said his father, who added that others on the patrol should be recognized for their heroic actions. Miller was just focused on what needed to be done and to make sure other people got out of the situation alive, his mother said. "I would not be here talking to you right now ... if Robby had not done what he did," Lodyga said. "Without him doing what he did, there would be seven less Special Forces soldiers on the face of the Earth right now." Military editor Henry Cuningham can be reached at cuninghamh@ fayobserver.com or 486-3585.
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At the first lull in the shooting, the Afghan soldiers jumped up, ran away and hid, Lodyga said.
