Memorial Day hangs heavier this year with word from the East Tennessee hills that Austin Miller has died.
Miller was a Vietnam War veteran whose years-long obsession to find the family of a Batesville buddy killed beside him during fighting in 1968 became the subject of stories featured in the Batesville Magazine’s Fall/Winter, 2013 and Spring/Summer, 2014 editions.
Miller said he wanted to meet Jones’ father. “All I ever wanted to do was to look him in the eye and say he was a fine fellow,” Miller said in one of the many accolades with which he praised fallen soldier Clarence Jones from Batesville. “His body shielded and protected me,” he continued. “All I got was a concussion.” Miller’s voice would break and he would cry every time he recalled the memory.
With help from other survivors and their spouses from Company D, Third Battalion, 12th Infantry of the Fourth Division, Miller learned in 1991 that Clarence Jones had come from Batesville. (During their five months together in the same squad Miller had only known that Jones was from the Memphis area.)
By the time Miller made contact with the Jones family, Clarence Jones’ father, Joseph Jones, had died. But Miller was surprised to discover that Clarence Jones had left a daughter, born five weeks after her father was killed. It led to a friendship that Miller would cherish for the rest of his life.
East Tennessee native Danny Jones, a Batesville resident since 1983 and now retired from Dunlap and Kyle, became the catalyst for the magazine stories in 2012. He had been listed by name and town in the obituary of a close relative who had died near Miller’s east Tennessee home. Miller read the obituary and, curiosity piqued about someone with the same last name and hometown as his wartime buddy, found Danny at the funeral home and told him about Clarence Jones.
That is how we first heard about Austin Miller, Clarence Jones and his daughter, Teresa. Compiling information for the story led to many phone conversations with Miller, and every conversation would be punctuated by long seconds of silence while Miller regained his composure after breaking down in tears at the painful memories. Though I never met him in person, I felt closer to him with each conversation.
Miller had been drafted in June, 1967 — right after high school. In May, 1968, on Hill 990 in South Vietnam’s Kontum Province, Miller and Jones  and the other Company D soldiers were almost overrun by a North Vietnamese night attack. Jones was among the seven soldiers from Company D killed during the long night.
Miller with an M-60 machine gun held off the charging North Vietnamese for over an hour, long enough for the rest of the Company D soldiers to fall back to a better defensive position. (It was only from correspondence from the Army notifying Miller’s parents of a Bronze Star with “V” that they found out about it. His letters home omitted mention of the risks Company D often faced.)
“Hill 990 was the nightmare of the war for all of us,” recalled Jim Basile, another Company D soldier.
“It is always with you,” a Batesville veteran — who accrued his own nightmares in Vietnam combat unrelated to Miller and Hill 990 — once said. “On good days you may think about it four or five times; on bad days you can’t get it out of your mind.”
Miller returned home in June, 1969, married his longtime sweetheart Brenda and started a family. He went to work for the local rural electric cooperative and stayed there 40 years before he retired. He enjoyed riding his horses, and he especially enjoyed hunting black bear on horseback.
Danny Jones visited Miller at his home near Vonore, Tn, in the Smoky Mountains and talks about the beautiful setting on top of one of the many scenic hills.
The Miller family friendship with Teresa Jones continues. When she received her doctorate from Auburn in 2013, Miller and his wife, Brenda, joined family members for the graduation. The next year, Teresa paid the Miller family an extensive visit during which they proudly showed off “our beautiful mountains,” Brenda wrote in the note accompanying the photos she sent us afterwards. Teresa was listed in Miller’s obituary as “special friend.”
Wednesday, May 18, when recurring nightmares from almost 50 years ago became too painful to bear, Miller took his own life.
James Austin Miller, 1946-2016, as surely a casualty of the Vietnam War as his old friend from long ago.