It was early November, we were already eliminated from playoff contention, and all we had to play for was pride. A victory was all but assured against lowly Springfield Gardens. Until former football coach Dave Velkas came in with a blank ball, we had no clue what we were playing for.
Then he slowly explained that former Pegleg football captain Lieutenant Ryan Miller (’01) had been injured in Iraq. He brought the ball for us to sign and write the final score on. Before the game even started we promised that their score on the ball would be zero. We played probably the best game of our season, winning 34-0. But this column isn’t about the game; it’s about the man who inspired it.
Ryan Miller grew up on Staten Island, where he played Pee Wee football. Once he became a Stuyvesant student it was only natural for him to join the Pegleg football team.
Miller was one of the better players on the team. “I never will forget. I broke eight [tackles] en route to a 40-yard touchdown scamper,” he said, which he did during the junior varsity homecoming game in his freshmen year.
Miller made the varsity team a year later. After garnering significant playing time as a sophomore, he helped lead the Peglegs to their first winning season since 1996 as a junior. He described his performance that season as “probably better than [my] senior one.”
That offseason, with serious chances to go off and play college football at Princeton, Miller was stricken with ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, which “cost me a lot of speed, size and strength,” he said. Despite the disease and loss of athleticism, Miller won the Peglegs’ Player of the Year award in 2000.
After graduating, Miller’s path was atypical for a Stuyvesant student. He went to West Point in the fall of 2001. West Point “was something different than what everyone else was doing,” Miller said. “Everyone wanted to go to an Ivy League School and then do one of four things—law, medicine, business or save the world.”
The four years at West Point were tough on Miller. “Between being a senior at Stuy and that first summer and that first year, the overall difficulty of my life, increased tenfold,” Miller said. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Not only was he challenged physically, but he reached an academic level he never reached at Stuyvesant. The B+ high school student worked harder at West Point, maintaining an A average and graduating at the top of his class in the Nuclear Engineering Program. But the hardest part for Miller was the responsibilty and discipline of the Academy.
“Toughness was choosing the harder right over the easier wrong,” Miller said.
After graduation, Miller went to Ranger School in Germany, where he prepared for his imminent departure to Iraq. Stationed in Baghdad, he worked to stabilize the Karkh region of the city. Because of the presence of high troop levels, it was rather safe and his main job was to oversee the rebuilding projects. “The people interaction over there was so interesting it was almost worth the deployment in some respects,” he said.
Following his stay in Karkh, Miller was moved inside to a Tactical Operation Center. Working indoors provided Miller with an opportunity to get back into shape, but he still itched to go out on a patrol. Eventually, after requesting almost a month to do so, he received permission to go out on patrol.
After that trip, Miller’s life would never be the same. It was a normal patrol in the Rashid region of Baghdad, a section he described as a “Ghost Town.” While driving past the border between Rashid and Saha (a more militant region controlled by the infamous Muqtada al-Sadr), an improvised explosive device (IED) was fired at their Stryker.
Normally a Stryker can take shots from IEDs, but these were the more powerful explosive formed projectiles (EFP). The shot created three of those EFPs. “[The device created] a slug of molten steel the size of a fist, traveling at over six miles an hour and able to penetrate five inches of steel,” Miller said.
Three of them were shot at the Stryker. “Luckily, one broke up and caused no casualties, one penetrated the center of mass and killed Corporal Wayne Geiger, and the third one hit the rear and severely injured [me],” Miller said. “I must have [had] 34 pieces throughout me.”
Fortunately for Miller, he received immediate care. “The whole time I was receiving care from soldiers, then medics,” Miller said. “[The soldiers] were very well trained and focused on stopping the bleeding and keeping me breathing.” Doctors at the Green Zone hospital were able to perform emergency surgery. Soon, Miller was transported to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany before arriving at Walter Reed Hospital outside of Washington D.C.
In December, he was moved to St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York. At these four different hospitals, Miller has had 14 different surgeries and has had a toe amputated, but is making a great recovery. By the end of this month, Miller will start the final leg of his rehabilitation at West Point and help the Nuclear Engineering Program where he received his degree from.
Ryan Miller was so inspirational to me because he volunteered to help defend America. His Senior Quote was from another West Point Alum, former president Dwight D. Eisenhower: “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” He went out at a time when few people were enlisted, and valued principles above privileges.