ATLANTA -- Sgt. Johnny Miller fought his way up Hill 875 in Vietnam’s central highlands until a fellow paratrooper noticed Miller was bleeding. Incredulous, the Georgian checked himself, confirming he had indeed been hit in the chest with enemy gunfire.
As North Vietnamese troops attacked from behind and along their right flank, Miller and his men found themselves nearly surrounded amid the ferocious 1967 Battle of Dak To. A U.S. jet pilot swooped down and dropped two bombs, hoping to tip the balance in the Americans’ favor. But one exploded in the middle of the paratroopers, killing many and wounding even more.
The blast ripped open Miller’s left leg. Grievously wounded, he narrowly survived and was eventually evacuated from the battle, only to land squarely in the middle of another one. As Miller was hospitalized, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.
