U.S. ARMY AIR CORPS Edward A. Miller, Sr. In February of 1942, with World War II in full flame, University of Maryland student Edward A. Miller, now of Castine, set out to do his part. “I wanted to do something,” he recalled. He enlisted in the Army’s Maritime Service Training Station in St. Petersburg, Fla. From there, he transferred to the Army’s marine officers cadet school for 12 weeks of training. He graduated an apprentice seaman and was assigned to the Light Army Transport Service. More training followed in New Orleans. Because he had been studying engineering at the University of Maryland, Miller was assigned to teach Army courses in engineering, refrigeration and, well, other subjects: “I taught things I hadn’t learned yet. It’s the best way to learn.” High blood pressure threatened to limit his rise in the ranks, but an understanding Army doctor taught Miller relaxation techniques that brought his numbers down. Later, commissioned as a second lieutenant, Miller was sent to Seattle to join a special Army unit that was being deployed to the Pacific. He landed on New Guinea and participated in the invasion of the Philippines, always hitting the mortar-tossed beaches from a small landing craft in which he had the front row seat. “I had very little experience and training,” Miller said. “But when I got in the landing boat, I said the platoon leader belongs in the front of the boat. When they dropped the ramp, I was in first.” He once suffered minor injuries diving into a foxhole to avoid machine gun fire. Whether it was bullet fragments or ricocheting rocks that did the damage, he was not put out of action. He was offered a medal from “a cigar box full of Purple Hearts” but declined. Miller had plenty of intense experiences, as when the landing craft hit a sandbar 50 yards out and he and his men had to wade to shore holding their guns overhead. There was danger all around … and in the skies. “I didn’t believe it about kamikazes until one morning I saw four of them fly into cargo ships,” he said.  After the war ended, Miller remained in the Pacific patrolling the waters and enforcing the interdiction against Chinese junks whose crews were “stealing anything they could steal.” Right after the war, Miller married his college sweetheart, Mary Jane Chase, herself a veteran (profiled in this space Aug. 3). Edward was called up to serve during the Korean Conflict. After his discharge, Miller considered becoming a patent attorney. His day job was as an engineer for GE, so he took night school classes in law. He earned his law degree but never took the bar, choosing to concentrate on engineering. As General Electric’s project engineer and program manager, he was responsible for the design, construction, deployment and recovery of a satellite recovery vehicle — the first man-made object recovered from Earth’s orbit. As a leader of Itek Corp.’s Viking Lander Program, he helped obtain the first imagery transmitted from the surface of Mars in 1974. He was assistant secretary of the Army for research and development from 1975 through 1977, heading up a program that resulted in such advanced weapons systems as the Apache and Blackhawk helicopters, the Abrams M1 Tank, and the Patriot High Altitude Air Defense System. He received the Army Distinguished Civilian Service Decoration and was recognized as an Eminent Engineer by the National Engineering Honor Society (Tau Beta Pi) in 1976. He was named a Pioneer of Space Technology in 1985 and was honored by the Director of Central Intelligence for his role in the satellite-recovery project. In 2005, he was one of the five project members honored by the National Academy of Engineering with the Draper Award “for their lifetime dedication to their field and their commitment to advancing the human condition through great engineering achievement and/or through innovation in engineering and technology education.” The Millers have five grown children and four grandchildren. — Stephen Fay