Lee Miller was born in Ashland, Ohio in 1926. During World War II, he was stationed at Camp Atterbury, Fort McClellan, Fort Dix, Fort Oglethorpe, and finally Camp Shelby, where he was being prepared for the invasion of Japan. He was promoted to army staff sergeant at the young age of 19, but the war ended before he was deployed overseas.

When hostilities intensified in Korea, he was called up from the reserves and stationed at Fort Sheridan and Fort Benning. As a 2nd and 1st lieutenant in the Korean War, he served as a rifle platoon leader in I Company, 31st infantry, 8th Army in 1951-52 and fought on the famed Heartbreak Ridge. Bill Mauldin, the famous cartoonist and war correspondent, bunked with him for a time and wrote articles about his platoon.

Upon returning from Korea, he received a master’s degree in business from the University of Chicago in 1954. He later moved his family to North Carolina where he lived until his death from pancreatic cancer in 1992.