7 a.m.: Family, town mourn loss of soldier

By Aleasha Sandley

August 07, 2008 06:59 am

— PENDLETON — A Pendleton family mourns today, five days after one of its members was killed in Iraq.
Sgt. Brian K. Miller, who was killed in Abd Allah in central Iraq Saturday, left behind a wife, Becky, and two children, a daughter, 13, and son, 10.
“He was a wonderful father, wonderful husband, wonderful soldier,” said April Miller, a fellow military wife and friend of the family who is not related to Brian Miller.
Brian Miller’s family would not comment on his death.
Others in Pendleton and around the state feel the tragic loss of Miller, who died when his vehicle swerved to miss an object in the road and overturned.
Anderson resident Don McAllister has interviewed war veterans from World War I through the Iraq war for his organization, National Veteran’s Historical Archives. A war-time loss affects the entire military community, he said.
“You belong; you are all connected, and when you lose one of those connections, it can’t be replaced,” McAllister said. “I guarantee that if he were just wounded he would want to get back because, ‘Those are my buddies.’ There’s a sense of cohesiveness there that can’t be established in any other group. You can see it in their eyes.”
State Rep. Scott Reske, D-Pendleton, expressed sadness at Miller’s death.
“It’s frustrating to lose people over there, and it’s doubly frustrating when it’s so close to home,” said Reske, who served the war effort in Iraq in 2004 with the Marine Corps Reserve. “We’ve had a high number of people killed in Iraq from this area. You do have a brother-sister kinship with all your fellow servicemen. It’s a shared loss.”
Reske’s brother, Clifford, was a battalion surgeon in Iraq.
“I just can’t imagine what it’s like to be a family member and lose someone over there,” Scott Reske said. “I know the stress because my brother and I were over there at the same time.”
The cause of the accident remains under investigation. Brian Miller’s funeral arrangements are pending at Robert D. Loose Funeral Home, Anderson. No new details will be available until his family informs the funeral home, and his body is returned from Iraq.
Miller, a 1990 graduate of Pendleton Heights High School, will be honored by the school with its participation in the funeral arrangements. The school will allow the use of its gym for part of the services, principal Glen Nelson said.
“Our involvement in the funeral will make this a whole lot more real to (the students) and bring this message home,” Nelson said.
Eighteen Indiana National Guard Soldiers have died in combat or from combat-related incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. Miller is the first Indiana National Guard soldier or airman from Madison County to have died since then, according to National Guard spokesman Staff Sgt. Jeff Lowry.