Spokane soldier ‘loved the Army’

Harley Miller was a hard-working Valley student who grew into a devoted American proud to serve his country at war, his family, former teachers and a friend recalled Thursday.

That service took the 21-year-old Army helicopter mechanic to Afghanistan earlier this year. Over the weekend, it cost the young father his life, when an airplane carrying Miller and five others crashed into the snowy mountains of the Hindu Kush.

“He was just very proud to be an American,” said Sarah Johnston, a close friend to Harley and his wife, Sarah Miller. “He loved the Army. He was always teased by his friends in the Army by how much he loved it.”

Jeff Miller, his uncle, said Harley came from a family deeply rooted in military service. His grandfather, father and three uncles also served in uniform at various times, and Harley grew up with plans to join the Army.

“He believed in the military,” Jeff Miller said. “He was a great kid. It’s a great loss.”

Based on incorrect information supplied by the Army, The Spokesman-Review incorrectly reported Thursday that Miller’s family was no longer in Spokane. In fact, his father, Damon Miller, grandmother Joydine Miller, several uncles, aunts and cousins live in the Spokane area, Jeff Miller said. His mother, Christine, lives in Western Washington, and he has three sisters, Autumn, Lynnea and Amber, who live outside the Spokane area, Joydine Miller added.

Harley Miller took classes from West Valley’s Contract-Based Education program and attended University High School, graduating in 2002. Teachers who worked with him in high school and junior high remembered a serious, determined student.

“Whatever he would do, he would totally throw himself into,” said Kit Latta, who worked with Miller in his final course before he received his diploma. “Things didn’t always come easily for him, but he worked everything out. He kind of had that ‘never give up’ attitude.”

Kerri Barsness, who taught Miller in seventh and eighth grades, described him as bright, articulate and resilient.

“He had an inner determination and strength,” she said. “He always had his homework done. Always.”

Barsness remembered talking to Miller the day in the spring of 2002 when he received his diploma. He was happy and told her he was going into the military. She told him she was proud of him.

“He was just fun to be around,” said Johnston, who met Miller in 2001 at an auto glass repair shop where they both worked briefly. “He made any bad day seem good.”

A good mechanic as a teenager, Miller was trained by the Army to repair its Kiowa helicopters. He was assigned to the 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Light Infantry Division, stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

In 2003, he married Sarah, whom he had known since high school, his grandmother Joydine said. They have a son, Korey, who is slightly less than a year and a half old, Johnston said. After Harley shipped out to Afghanistan with his unit this spring, Sarah and Korey returned to Spokane to be with family.

Miller was with two other members of his unit, Lt. Col. Michael J. McMahon of Connecticut and Chief Warrant Officer Travis W. Grogan of Virginia Beach, Va., and three contract civilian workers on a civilian transport plane en route to western Afghanistan where U.S. forces were searching for Taliban and al Qaeda militants. Military sources told the Associated Press the cause of the crash was not yet known, but it appeared the plane got into a valley and was unable to gain altitude quickly enough to clear the mountains.

There were no indications the plane was brought down by hostile fire, the military said.

Its debris was scattered across Baba Mountain, whose snow-covered peak rises about 16,600 feet, an Afghan police official told the AP. The area is so remote that military and civilian teams needed several days to reach the site. There were no survivors.

Sarah Miller was trying to make arrangements for Harley’s services Thursday and declined a request for an interview. But through Johnston, she said she wanted everyone to know Harley Miller was a very loving husband and father who will always be in her heart. “He’ll be greatly missed,” Sarah Miller said.