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THE THINKING MAN'S JOURNAL
A Man Overboard
 
        
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

   



A Father's Legacy
Lt. Lee H. Miller, a fighting soldier during the Korean War, left an especially prized legacy for his sons, Keith and Eric Miller.
 
Several years after their father's death in 1992, Keith received a surprise -- an amazing package from his mother -- a novel his father wrote following the war. The nonfiction novel, unfamiliar to Keith, was based on a journal the lieutenant kept while in the service.

In 2003, on the 50th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean conflict, Keith published his father's story, Korea's Sleeping Ghosts (Word Association Publishers).

Lee Miller never discussed with Keith that he had written this novel based on his wartime experiences as part of the 31st Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. The book was nearly published by Doubleday, who had expressed interest in the manuscript around the time Keith was born. The publishers had it scheduled for printing, but when the Vietnam War broke out, America's appetite for military stories soured. The deal was off and Keith and Eric grew up without knowing their father's wartime story.

As an adult, Keith watched football games
with his father on weekends, met for lunch
with him, and saw him at least a couple of
times a week - and had little knowledge
about the book. After retiring from Aeroglide
Corp., a manufacturer of drying equipment
for food processing and other industries in
Cary, N.C., Lee Miller was diagnosed with
terminal pancreatic cancer.

Keith described his father as a "very
honorable man."                                

"He held honesty and ethics very highly and taught that to us," Keith Miller related. "My father was a man of his word. He was someone that I always could depend on. He was quiet and reserved, and not a back slapper or outwardly emotional. He had a great sense of humor, but I didn't see that much of it."

In contrast to the author's demeanor with his family, Korea's Sleeping Ghosts is often very funny. It's reminiscent of a mad-cap M.A.S.H. episode.

Young Keith Miller was surprised at his father's humorous tone in telling the often horrific war story - one in which the lieutenant actually turned down the Silver Star, awarded for gallantry in action, when he retrieved booby-trapped bodies from the battlefield.

"He was part of that generation from the Great Depression and the tough times of War World II," Keith explained.  "He wasn't what I would call outwardly fun-loving in his relationship with me. We didn't go do a lot of things that fathers do with their kids--we never went camping."

They didn't go to amusement parks, either. (Keith Miller is currently a writer for amusement park trade publications.)

"We traveled around to battlefields like Antietum and Gettysburg for our vacations," Keith Miller said. "He wanted us to understand the sacrifices these people made for their country. But as an eight-year-old kid, that didn't mean a lot to me at the time."

Lee Miller worked long hours, including Saturdays, leaving little time to interact with his children, except on those historic vacations.

"The thing I appreciate now, as I look back, was that even though he was a disciplinarian, he had a tremendous amount of faith and trust in me," his son recalled. "He gave me a free reign in what I did with my own time. He didn't restrict me on what I could do. I remember at 17, I took off on my own, in my car, and went up through Michigan and Ohio. He allowed me to do that. He respected the explorer in me. He never even told me to do my homework. I did that on my own."

                                               In Korea's Sleeping Ghosts, Lee Miller                                                  describes a series of events that                                                          closely parallel much of his real                                                            experience as a man in his 20s when                                                   he was sent to lead troops in Korea.                                                     Earlier, this courageous young man                                                      had persuaded his mother to let him                                                     sign up at the age of 17 for the Army                                                    so he could help in World War II.  By                                                    the time he was sent to Korea,                                                             however, he was more interested in                                                      desk duty than a combat assignment.                                                  According to his journal, Lee Miller                                                       said he was reluctant to lead a troop of             Keith Miller                fighting men on foreign soil because he                                                 had no previous combat experience.

Lieutenant Miller ended up proving himself as a valiant leader in combat, surviving many harrowing experiences that are wonderfully detailed in the book. "He concentrated much more on the relationships between men and things that happened off the battlefield," Keith Miller said. "There were rough dramatic things that happened on the battlefield, but that's not what he focused on."

When Lee Miller was finally promoted to a position behind the lines, he found himself returning to the front for visits. As he wrote in the book about the main character, Pete Mullins, his alter ego: "He began to haunt the George Company positions in off hours, taking care to stay out of the way and mostly just spying on the enemy from OP. Not that there was anything very dangerous in this, as quiet as things were, but it gave him a feeling of contact with something vital."

Lee Miller's seriousness was more familiar to his sons than his humor.

"What I regret was that he didn't show more of that humorous young guy in Korea to me," Keith said. "He was a lot of what we call the Trickster, yet he so rarely showed it to me. So when he did show his humor, that made it all the more surprising and funny. He loved a good laugh and joke, but reluctantly told them. He had a lot more fun with his war buddies than he did with us. I think his strict upbringing from his mother --she was always there in his mind wagging her finger at him--pulled him back from saying funny things."

Another passage in the book highlights this other part of Lee Miller: "A touch of envy surfaced in Mullins as he watched them. Harvey and Watts shared an uncommon quality  a durable lightness of spirit that flew blithely in the face of grimness all around. Mullins secretly admired this quality, and wondered if it was to be found in him. For some reason, this one thing seemed to matter quite a bit."

This military man's creative work helped his children understand their father, Keith said.

"I knew he was a good decent man," Keith continued. "Now that I know these things, I try to look at whatever shortcomings he had and his reasons--things he was battling in himself. He was faced with such daunting challenges. He didn't get the chance to let a lot of that out. His generation wasn't the most fun time to be a teenager."

Keith Miller said he deeply respects and admires him, even as he carries "some resentment towards his father as most sons do."

"When I was a teenager, he tried desperately to make a connection with me," recalled Keith. "At that time, I felt like saying 'you haven't been there for me the past years, it's too late to come in now.' He paid a price with me in that I just wasn't willing to let him in. Back then, I was only looking at him as a father figure. Now, I'm looking at him as someone younger than I am, not as the man of authority. I read his book looking at him as an equal and even younger than me. When I was in my 20's what would it have been like for me to be in a Korean platoon? Or never having fired a gun in combat, never having the experience of leading men?  To his surprise, my dad as a young man was given a platoon. He sensed right away that his men didn't trust him because he didn't have battle experience. I can't imagine being under that kind of pressure in a foreign country with men looking to you for leadership and not really knowing what you're doing. It was powerful for me the first time I recognized that my father saw shortcomings in himself."

According to his son, Lee Miller's own opinion of himself was that he "was too intense, and was bearing down too hard, and not taking things lightly enough."
 
 
Quoting from the book, Keith read aloud this passage, one in which a buddy of Lee Miller's is speaking to him: "Watts was making neat imprints in the snow with the butt of his carbine. 'You know,' he said slowly, 'a man in our shoes jist about has to live from day to day, considerin' the odds. Wouldn't make much sense for a fella to take things too serious, would it?'"

Keith said he remembered a remark his father had made in a letter to his mother.

"On one hand he was kind of regretting that he wasn't real popular with some of his men because he was so tough on them," Keith said. "And in his letter he makes an off-handed mention that he had to threaten one of his own men with a gun if he didn't move. The guy had frozen with fear in combat. My father said he threatened to kill him. He said his job was to keep them alive. He said 'I don't care if they go back home hating me, as long as they're alive.'"

According to Keith Miller, many of the men who fought in the Korean War have been especially appreciative of the book's publication.

"A man who fought with my father emailed me after the book came out," Miller explained. "There were only 40 men in his platoon and half of them are dead by now. It was very exciting for me to hear from one of the few remained alive. This man was so interested in the book that I sent him scans of my dad's journal. He was in dad's platoon. I told him, 'this is my father's private journal, so please keep this confidential.' He loved it. He said he was there when these things happened that are written in the journal. It means so much to me that I get to meet these Korean veterans who served with my father."

Korea's Sleeping Ghosts is truly a well-written story. The exceptional use of language and syntax bespeaks of a very educated author.

Lt. Lee Miller attended the University of Chicago and placed out of his undergraduate degree, proceeding straight into graduate school where he excelled in business.

"Growing up, we took our papers and things to him to review from school," Keith said. "He was the most incredible speller I've ever seen. One of his fellow workers at Aeroglide said whenever they sent anything out for public consumption, they ran it by him first. He should have been an English major. Dad read every night on the couch. He consumed everything. He loved to read, loved to write."

Because of his father's precision around wording, Keith said he was "very careful when making some changes with the book."

Recently, Keith Miller spoke to a group from the Daughters of the American Revolution regarding the publication of his father's tome.
"Some husbands at the meeting were Korean veterans," Keith said, "and they told their own stories. Hearing them open up was incredible."

In the book, there is a vivid incident where twins are serving together and one of the brothers is killed in a fierce battle.

"A man's twin brother was killed and bled to death in his arms," Miller said. "And somehow, by accident, we stumbled upon one another, and he called me one night. I could not believe he was still alive. We talked for 45 minutes. He read the book and called me again. He said he remembered that day his brother was killed. At the time, he was in shock and unaware of what was going on around him. He didn't how this tragic scene affected everyone. Even though he was there, he didn't know how it affected the other men.  It was wonderful for him to realize so many years later that he didn't face that time alone. He didn't bare that pain by himself. He always thought he did."

A number of days later, Keith Miller found a package at his doorstep. It was from the surviving twin.

"He sent me a beautiful case for my dad's burial flag," Miller said."I folded it, put it in the flag case, and presented it to my family this past Thanksgiving. Isn't that amazing that my dad's flag sits in a case from the surviving twin that served under him? I'm sure my dad thought he'd never hear from him again - and 50 years later, this twin sends me a case to put dad's flag in. Talk about the closing of a circle  it doesn't get any better than that. A lot of good has happened, but that's the best thing  the book let that man know, who lost his brother in his arms, that he wasn't alone in his grief. It's been a month since that happened and I still can't get over it."
 
Lt. Lee H. Miller will not be forgotten, nor will his experience that he relates in his own words  his words as a blessed legacy for his sons and for all men everywhere. 

Contact http://www.koreassleepingghosts.com for more information regarding the book.
 
Copyright 2003 A Man Overboard Magazine
All Rights Reserved
 
 

HOLDING THE LINE
By Reid Baer


Stuck
shivering
scared stiff
in a Korean fox hole
with fingers fixed on a carbine
inside a foreign body
frozen
numb
like an ice statue
chilled to the bone
draped in white
black faced
camouflaged
still
alone
looking out
mind off
wandering
over the horizon
blank landscape
and cragged slopes
of hill six-five-six
beading down
upon
me
wearily
almost
welcoming
a fire fight for nothing more than the heat to stir my blood
And Other Poems
By Reid Baer


Lingering Hopes
Of Being Buried Alive

I'm back
in NYC sharing
an old apartment with overly
intimate people crowded together
taking turns with a stopped-up toilet
overflowing with crap I'm working 12-hour
days in a menial corporate job out of a closet-sized office almost losing my mind
living my off hours happily playing the piano without sheet music I'm becoming confused and enraged in a disorganized theater company frantically performing on stage
in the splashing rain for nearly nobody
around a big open court talking and
dreaming afterwards together with
cast and crew of one day enjoying
the comfort and security of a nice little water-tight place
of our own



LEARNING TREE

After I discouraged
a few highly charged
youth from crashing
at my one room place
we all met in the commons
and I stood in the center
of the circle like a broad oak
gathering little ones under my leafy shade
as someone of no small importance
over reaching with skinny long arms
in this educational neurotic complex
showing my anger and disdain
for a returned test score of my own
failing in the eyes of my followers
shamed by another teacher or preacher
saying this epiphany must be about me
a parrot pleasing person after all
worrying way too much for way
too long whether or not
I'd ruffled any feathers



The Shepherd's Crook

Though he considers
himself an Iron God
at least
more vaingloriously
because of worldly success

In fact the man
is counted among
the furry sheep
more guilty about
his personal deficiencies



STRAIGHT EYE

So what I thought was my
synergistic moment
of consciousness with you

Became really an un-
realistic expectation
and me without a clue



THE SUMMIT
AND ABYSS

On the land
in the sky
it's not height
that I fear
but the depth
of my heart
sinking down
with these hands
shooting up
from sure faith
like Nitzsche's
Superman



A RESPITE FROM THE HEAT

I do not call
cumulus clouds
blasphemous but
praise the shadow
that hides the sun
for a moment
hardening the
waxed wings fixed aloft
flying high in
a cool draft of a
gentle blissful
breeze blessing the
crown and setting
the body down
lightly upon the feet
touching the ground
taking a sweet
quiet breath in
and releasing
a long satisfying sound out



Zarathustra Zeal

There are no terrible
archetypal fires
burning right tonight nor
armies ready to fight
in all their awesome might

Instead I do perceive
surrender in your ranks
and a fear of being
free to feel with any
real life intensity



Megalomaniaopoly

I am owner of the world thrice
And possessor of good luck twice
With a single roll of the dice



The Present

I'm making a box
to contain my loose

Emotional things
wrapping it with plain

Paper and tying
it with sturdy string



SECRET OF THE SOUL