Sergeant Franklin D. Miller and his small team were pinned down by over 100 North Vietnamese
soldiers. Four of his men were critically wounded, and the rest were almost incapacitated.
Nightfall was upon them, and Miller had already single-handedly repelled three numerically
superior NVA attacks with nothing more than his trusty CAR-15 Carbine and a dozen grenades.
Despite his heroic efforts, he knew time was running out. The relief force had not arrived,
he was bleeding from his chest and left arm, and ammunition was running low.
It was now or never, so he calmly went prone, made sure he was concealed by the
tall grass above the hill, and prepared to repel an incoming attack on his own...
Military Escalation
The American military involvement in Vietnam escalated after the decisive
French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu at the hands of the Viet Minh in May of 1954.
The event also marked the end of the First Indochina War, which had raged since 1945.
The terms of the July 1954 peace agreement between the French and
the Communists established a temporary partition of Vietnam,
dividing the north and south until national elections were called in 1956.
Those elections never happened, and the regions remained divided.
The Communist North received military support from the Soviet Union and Communist China,
while the South was supplied by the United States and other Western allies.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his successor, President John F. Kennedy,
continually provided South Vietnam with American military advisors and equipment.
The Viet Cong insurgents had infiltrated the South and provoked havoc in the countryside,
but the South Vietnamese military lacked the cohesion to fight the organized guerrilla.
As the years went by, the combat turned bloodier and more personal as the North,
led by Ho Chi Minh, sought to unite all of Vietnam under Communist rule.
Then, in August of 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats engaged US Navy warships in the Gulf of
Tonkin, prompting Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson to escalate the conflict in Vietnam with
the deployment of American troops. The United States was now at war.
Joining the Fray
Initially, the American population reacted positively to the war in
Vietnam. The Domino Theory and the imminent threat that Communism posed
to liberty and democracy were real both in Europe and the United States.
As many young men across the country joined the armed forces to fight in Vietnam,
Franklin Douglas Miller from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, did the same.
He joined the US Army in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February of 1965,
and like any other soldier, he went through basic and advanced infantry training.
Miller took the Army Special Forces course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,
to become a Green Beret, and was a private first class when he received orders to go to Vietnam.
In a 1988 interview with an Army publication at Fort Bragg, he recalled: (QUOTE) ''One day I was
the dining room orderly, and the night before I'd been running around all night, so when I thought
no one would miss me, I went up to the barracks, and I fell sound asleep. The first people to wake
me up were the company commander and the first sergeant, who were inspecting the billets. The
first sergeant said, 'You can take your punishment from me, or you can go see the old man.'
I'd never been in trouble before, so I said I'd go see the old man.
I figured he would just chew me out. He said, 'We've got your reassignment orders to Vietnam.'''
Classified Operations
Miller was deployed in March of 1966 with the 1st Cavalry Division as an infantryman.
For two years, he conducted long-range reconnaissance operations in the Central
Highlands of South Vietnam before being transferred back to the Green Berets.
Upon his return, Miller was promoted to Staff Sergeant
and assigned to the Fifth Special Forces Group in Kontum Province.
As the Green Berets assembled to conduct patrols into Cambodia and Laos, Miller proved his worth
as a special operator. He later joined the elite Military Assistance Command Vietnam,
Studies and Observations Group, or MACV-SOG.
Only the best of the best were part of the group, a joint special operations command that comprised
Marine Force Recon personnel, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, CIA personnel, and Green Berets.
These elite operators often worked in small teams of no more than ten men and
operated deep inside the jungles, hills, and mountains of enemy territory to gather
valuable intelligence or complete search and destroy or search and rescue operations.
In his book, ‘Reflections of a Warrior: Six Years as a Green Beret in Vietnam,’ Miller remembered:
(QUOTE) “Here we were, walking down the road in the middle of enemy territory.
“We’d be wearing bandannas around our heads, with a notable absence of flak jackets or helmets. Our
tailored trousers would be unbloused, hanging straight down. We’d be heavily armed with
strange weapons. We looked sort of like banditos. We’d just smile at them and wave very casually.”
These commandos knew no fear, wore the distinctive tiger stripe camouflage pattern,
and were given unique equipment that was not available to standard units.
Behind Enemy Lines
On January 5, 1970, Staff Sergeant Miller led a seven-man team deep behind enemy lines
as part of a long-range reconnaissance patrol to gather intelligence about the
latest North Vietnamese movements around Kontum Province and Laos.
The Special Forces team comprised American operators and Montagnard
tribesmen of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, and they infiltrated enemy territory aboard
two UH-D1 Huey helicopters and an escort of six Cobra choppers.
Once below the dense canopy, the team had to make its way to Laos to find a friendly
intelligence aircraft that had been shot down and then gather intelligence about an NVA base nearby.
Miller and his men moved through the jungle effortlessly,
blending with the environment thanks to their uniforms and camouflage painting.
But as the operators approached the crash site, they grew aware of the enemy's presence.
Miller then separated from the squad, went prone, and spotted over 40 NVA soldiers sitting in the
high grass surrounding the destroyed US aircraft. He returned to his team and reported the position
to the forward air controller circling above, who sent the operators to the crash zone.
Hours later, while on patrol, Miller heard an explosion below the hill where his squad was
advancing. He recalled: (QUOTE) “Strong shock waves assaulted my body, and my vision blurred,
like a camera being jarred. My initial reaction was to hit the ground because
the first thing you learn about combat is that anything standing gets hit.”
One of the Montagnards had triggered a booby trap, and five of Miller’s men had been injured.
One-Man Army
Knowing that the explosion could alert the enemy, Sergeant Miller quickly administered first aid
to the wounded and directed the team across a small stream bed at the base of a steep hill.
Within a few minutes, Miller saw the leader of what he believed to
be a platoon-sized group moving toward his location. He recalled: (QUOTE) “Suddenly,
25 to 30 NVA jumped up and began assaulting the ambush site where the blast had occurred.
At first, they weren’t aware of Hyuk, my point man, and me on their flank. We dropped empty
magazines, jammed in full ones, and tried to stop the onslaught into the kill zone.”
While shooting at the enemy with his CAR-15 Carbine, Miller directed his team to move up
the hill to a more defensible position. He then separated from the patrol to meet the advancing
NVA. He knew his team could not fight, they could barely move and two of them were severely injured.
The brave sergeant single-handedly repulsed two enemy attacks and forced them to withdraw
in disorder. He then sprinted through the hill to rejoin the rest of the patrol and
established contact with FAC. Moments later, he called for an evacuation.
The only suitable extraction point in the dense jungle was a bomb crater 150 meters
from the team’s location, so Miller scouted the route to the crater and
led the team through the hostile jungle to the extraction site.
They now had to wait.
Holding Ground
AK-47 bursts concentrated on Miller, who was covering the team’s rear.
And as the rescue helicopter hovered over the crater to pick up the patrol,
the enemy launched a savage attack with RPGs, causing the helicopter to retreat.
Once again, Miller led his team in a brave defense, but during the firefight,
he was wounded in the chest, and everything went pitch dark for a few seconds.
Moments later, he was firing his Carbine and lobbying grenades to drive back the enemy.
The sergeant continued to fight on his own until nightfall, when he began to run
out of ammunition. Four of his men had already perished, and the other two were incapacitated.
Moreover, the continuous strikes of mortars and explosives had rendered his left arm almost
useless. Nevertheless, he managed to continue firing by placing his Carbine on the ground.
From his forward exposed position, Miller gallantly repelled another two attacks,
and just as he was about to pass out, he saw the silhouette of a soldier carrying an M60
machine gun trying to catch his attention. It was a Montagnard from Hatchet Force, a relief squad.
Eventually, another reconnaissance team arrived to evacuate Miller’s team.
The sergeant’s bravery and devotion to his men earned him the Medal of Honor in 1971.
Throughout his career, he was also awarded six Purple Hearts,
two Bronze Stars, one Silver Star, and one Air Medal.
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