After 70 years, Oklahoma Korean War soldier is honored for his bravery

It took 70 years, but this fall, Thomas Dawayne Miller got the kind of “Thank you for your service” that such a heroic Oklahoman truly deserved.

His story had long ago faded into the distant past for almost everyone. But now it will live on permanently on exhibit at the Oklahoma History Center — and in the hearts and minds of everyone who attended the 2022 Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame Banquet in October, a couple of weeks before Veterans Day 2022.

Miller and 11 other veterans were honored for the kind of bravery and devotion that is the stuff of legend, as the Hall of Fame’s inductees for this year. I was there because a couple of years before, one of my father’s last wishes was that I see if his boyhood friend could get into the Hall.

My father, Richard Kerr, and Miller were best buddies growing up in Garber in the late 1930s and 1940s. And they drove back and forth to visit after Miller moved to Perry with his grandmother in 1948.

April of senior year they both enlisted — Miller in the Marine Corps, Dad in the Navy. But after that, their lives took very different paths. Dad married his high school sweetheart when boot camp was over and went on to have a long life with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Miller was sent to the front lines of the Korean War in late 1951. His life ended there 70 years ago this month, in heavy combat. The 19-year-old’s final hours saw him taking actions worthy of any war movie — except it was all for real, not Hollywood. First taking on vital extra duties as his fellow Marines fell, exposing himself to unimaginable enemy fire in the process. Then, as Miller’s own life was draining away after a direct hit by enemy artillery, teaching a comrade how to operate their unit’s radio.

Miller did not have an easy life before that day. His mother died when he was 12 years old. His father had left the family earlier. But in old photos my dad had in a scrapbook, Miller is almost always smiling away. When I wrote his nominating letter to the Hall of Fame, I said I had come to know him through the photos and my parents’ memories as a young man very much like my father — energetic and athletic, quick with a smile, growing up with very little but taking great joy in life and time with his friends.

Moments from Miller’s senior year at Perry also play out like scenes from an old movie. In the fall he could be seen catching passes as an end on the last team coached by Harold “Hump” Daniels, who won three times as many games as he lost over 20 years and was so beloved the Perry Maroons still play football in the stadium named after him.

Calvin Kelley, the father of former Oklahoman Editor and current Dean of OU’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication Ed Kelley, grew up in Perry a little before Miller, also without his father in the home. The senior Kelley played for Daniels at Perry High, and told his son the coach was “the father I never had.” Likely Daniels played a similar role in Perry for Dawayne Miller.

When basketball season arrived, Miller stood out even more, captaining the team and leading it in scoring at least a half-dozen times. He went on to letter in baseball, as well.

Often during Miller’s senior year, Americans reading headlines like those in The Perry Daily Journal — “Allies Mop Up Around Seoul” and “Red Resistance Disappearing” — would have had good reason to believe the war in Korea should be over soon with an Allied victory. Indeed, the warring parties entered into peace talks shortly after Miller graduated in 1951. If negotiations had gone better, combat could have ended before he ever arrived in Korea. But as the war stalemated, talks dragged on until 1953.

So Miller’s 11 months in Korea were characterized by “agonizing and bloody” battles, historian Clay Blair wrote in "The Forgotten War," including “the most bitter fighting of the entire Korean campaign” the week he died in October 1952.

Miller served as a wireman of Battery D, Second Battalion, in the Eleventh Marines’ First Marine Division. The military account of his last day in combat said he served with “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity ... in action against enemy aggressor forces.” As the Allies suffered heavy casualties, Miller assumed the duties of both radio operator and artillery observer.

“Miller voluntarily exposed himself to intense and accurate hostile mortar, artillery and sniper fire, to call and adjust accurate artillery supporting fire and to check and repair damaged communications lines,” the account continued. “Although mortally wounded when an enemy shell fell directly on his bunker, he succeeded in instructing another Marine in the operation of his radio before succumbing to his wounds.”

He had the steady nerves and presence of mind under fire to do all that as a 19-year-old. Posthumously, he was awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Korean Service Medal, United Nations Service Medal, Korean Presidential Unit Citation, and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal.

“By his outstanding courage, daring initiative and zealous devotion to duty, Cpl. Miller served to inspire all who observed him and upheld the highest traditions of the United States naval reserve. He gallantly gave his life for his country,” his Silver Star citation said. His grandmother and only brother, Don, attended the medal-presentation ceremony.

Tracking down surviving family nearly seven decades later proved challenging. When I did finally locate Don’s son, Stillwater optometrist Jeff Miller, the older Miller was in poor health. He died not long after that. And my father died in February, before I got word that his boyhood friend was indeed going to make it into the Hall of Fame.

Maybe in a movie, the boyhood chums, Dawayne and my dad, somehow would have been there for the Hall’s big induction ceremony in October. Together they would have heard Dawayne’s heroics recounted, along with those of the other honorees. Would have felt the stirring, thundering rhythms pounded out by drummers of the Cherokee Nation Veterans Color Guard, would have been deeply moved by the heartfelt thanks of a grateful state and nation.

Since none of that could happen, Miller was represented by his nephew, Jeff, his niece, two cousins a little younger than him, and a few other descendants. I was there for my dad.

The closest I ever came to being a part of the military was living in base housing while Dad was still in the Navy. But as this Veterans Day approaches, I would say to anyone: If you ever get a chance to attend an Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame banquet, do it.

You will hear stories like Dawayne Miller’s of unbelievable heroism and devotion to duty, and feel gratitude for our fellow men and women whose service and sacrifice has so often changed the course of history for the rest of us — about 655,000 Oklahomans to date.

We can all hope someday the world will “give peace a chance,” as John Lennon implored in the 1970s. But so far, sadly, the older admonition — popularly credited to Plato — that “only the dead have seen the end of war” has proven more prophetic.

Whomever may have said it, with Putin waging war so far without end in Ukraine, with China threatening Taiwan — the source of 90% of the world’s microchips — and far too much other armed conflict elsewhere, that end is tragically nowhere on the horizon.

So on Veterans Day, we can all give thanks for the kind of service honored by the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame — and the vital contributions it will long continue to represent in a dangerous world.

Robert Kerr teaches media law and media history at the University of Oklahoma. More information on Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame: (www.okmhf.org). Its mission: “Honoring the men and women of Oklahoma who served in the Uniformed Services of the United States, demonstrating extraordinary acts of courage, heroism or gallantry, and who continue to serve our country and communities today.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Guest: After 70 years, bravery of Korean War soldier is honored