Family Remembers Fallen Vietnam War Hero

March 7, 1969

2100 hrs

Dear Mom & Dad,

I’m sitting in my bunker here on Buff writing this letter by flashlight. I never get too tired until around ten o’clock so I figured I’d write a few letters.

I go on guard duty around 3:30 so I’ll get enough sleep before then. I find I can go with less sleep now than ever. We haven’t run a patrol off the hill in about 5 days. I don’t doubt a bit that we’ll go out tomorrow for a few hours.

I’m getting a real dark tan now that its so nice out all the time. It still hasn’t rained, I believe the monsoons are definitely over.

You know I read the Stars & Stripes all the time and some of the news from the world astonishes me. For one thing the Navy is trying to place all the blame for the Pueblo incident completely on Bucher. It isn’t working too good though because all his men are sticking up for him. If they don’t lay off Bucher is going to crack up. All those men have been through too much already and those stupid investigators are making it worse.

Another thing that I just heard on the radio today, that deserter tried at Fort Dix got off with 4 yrs and a dishonorable discharge. He should have gotten alot more than that, the only reason he didn’t was because the trail was highly publicized and the army was afraid what the public would say. It’s hard to believe that not long ago deserters were shot. Deserting in the face of the enemy didn’t even require a trial, the man was shot on the spot no questions asked.

Not much else in the news is out of the ordinary. Coll students are still acting like they know everything and run around picketing and rioting and the peace talks are still a big farce.

I was surprised to hear Randy Boltz is in the Air Force. That article about the narcotics raid was real interesting. It didn’t suprise me it was the Owens family. They’re nothing but white trash anyway.

As of now I have 182 days left. If I get a five day drop I have 177 days to go. I’m getting short.

You know Mike came home Feb 17th by surprise. I hope by now he has paid you a visit. Mrs. Krause said he really looked good.

What’s Linda hear from her guy. I hope he isn’t the kind of guy that makes up war stories like some rear area guys I’ve seen. I don’t envy them though. I haven’t been to the rear in over 2 months, but I know its a hassle back there. Its almost like back in the states in Chu-Lai. When one of our guys goes to the rear to take care of a problem or go to the dentist or something the guys back there try to put them on details and stuff. They don’t have any consideration for the guy out in the field. You couldn’t pay me to take a job in the rear.

Well I’ve run out of stuff to say for now. Take care and tell everybody I said Hi.

Love,

Robin

Two days later on March 9, after 180 days in Vietnam, North Penn High School graduate and Bronze Star recipient Sgt. Robin Miller was killed in an ambush, along with two other men in his squad: Ralph Mayers and John Petrie. Miller, while mortally wounded, continued to aid and encouraged his men before he succumbed to his injuries. 

According to the blog of his sister Martha Kasper, two other men were captured as POWs:  Arthur Lindsey, who was found dead the next day of wounds he received, and Coy Tinsley, who was liberated October 24, 1969. Tinsley was just named the Veteran of the Year in 2009 for a Fraternal Order of the Eagles Post in Tennessee, according to momoncaffeine.com.

Robin's mother, Betty Miller, of Upper Gwynedd, was getting ready to go off to work at J. Henry Specht School in Towamencin, where she worked in the cafeteria, when she got the news of her son's death.

"It hit me hard, in a way," said the mother of four. "He enlisted. That's all he talked about in the last year in school."

Miller said she wasn't angered by her son's decision to go into the Army. He graduated in June 1967 and entered the Army in September.

"I knew that's what he wanted to do," she said, "and there was no sense of holding him back. I had no hard feelings at all. I'm a good Christian, I guess, in that sense." 

Miller's legacy is remembered daily—along with many other of Lansdale's brave sons from other wars and conflicts—at the North Penn High School Key Club memorial outside Penndale Middle School at the corner of Penn Street and Church Road.

Miller was there on Monday, accompanied by her grandson, Chad Nash, of Quakertown, and daughters Kasper, of Lansdale, and Linda Miller, of Upper Gwynedd, to place a single yellow rose in a vase before the memorial bearing her son's name during the club's annual Memorial Day ceremony.

"I love it," she said of the memorial. "Just the fact that it lets people know so many of our boys have died."

On Memorial Day 2012, an American flag was flown in honor of Miller over the U.S. Capital 

Linda Miller lost her best friend when she lost her brother in Vietnam.

"I was devastated," she said. "We were close in age. We had a lot of the same friends."

When Linda got the news, she was working with her dad at Bell Telephone.

"They came and got me, and said my dad was upstairs," she said. "He was very much devastated."

Today, if Linda wants to see her brother, she just looks at her son, Nash.

"He reminds me very much of him," she said, smiling and squinting in the midday sun. "He looks a good bit like him, and his mannerisms, and his ambitions and personality are a lot alike. He cares about people. He's kind. And my brother was that way too."  

Linda Miller found the memorial at Penndale to be fabulous.

"So many servicemen, even now, give their all, and we don't necessarily give back to them what we should be," she said.

You can read about Miller's time in Vietnam at this link.

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