A mother's grief
Soldier’s mom: U.S. military failed Pfc. Corey Miller

ABOVE: Michelle Miller stands in front of Riverwalk Park's military memorial in Grants with her partner Brad Hickson after receiving Pvt. 1st Class Cory Miller's medals and burial flag from her Casualty Assistance Officer. Miller died in Washington state May 23 after sustaining injuries in Gallup on March 17. BELOW: Michelle Miller displays her son's Army Achievment Medal as she clutches the flag from his coffin. [photos by Helen Davis / Independent]

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Where there should be a rage ripping through her world like a tornado destroying everything that stands, Michelle Miller finds analysis and action.

Where she could stand paralyzed from living what no mother should have to live, she is trying to make sure what she endured and continues to endure will not happen to someone else.

Miller held her son Corey in her arms when she made the decision to disconnect life support on the 18-year-old soldier and allow his organs be used for others, in accordance with his wishes. Miller said her son’s kidneys were given to a 69-year-old and a 74-year-old patient who were otherwise healthy and could now live.

The mother said that as she watched her son struggle for breath because of an unusual complication of a routine tracheotomy she begged him not to leave but finally told him, “If your battle is here please stay, but if your battle is not here, go. It’s OK” and watched as he shut down. He remained connected to machines that would keep his organs healthy until they could be used.

But Miller said her son should not be dead. She should not have had to say goodbye to her best friend twice. And she should not be planning a memorial for Pfc. Corey Stephen Miller more than a month after he died at Fort Lewis in Washington state.

Nothing should have happened the way it did.

Miller is angry with the military system that accepted her son as a patient in a Wounded Warrior recovery unit on the base. She said she believed he would get good care when he went back to his assigned base, having missed deployment to Iraq with his platoon because of an automobile accident. Corey was on leave before heading to Iraq when the car he was driving went out of control on a gravel road in Gallup and left him with back, pelvic, sacral and brain injuries. The soldier remained in a coma in a Phoenix hospital for three weeks when he was expected to stay unconscious for months, if not years. He awoke with questions on his mind, doing his best to voice them in spite of tube in his throat, helping him to breathe.

Miller, a nurse by profession, said the tube is not uncommon and generally comes out when the patient is conscious and ready to breath on his own. Corey waexpected to make a full recovery as far as the brain injuries went, with diminishing problems for the other injuries.

After some time in a rehabilitation hospital in Albuquerque, Miller, Corey and the doctors decided the young soldier should go back to his station, where they expected him to get continuing care and stimulation his brain injury required.

It did not work out that way. Corey did not get the supervised care he needed — was dropped off in a motel room alone when he arrived in Washington state. Finally in his barracks, he was placed a small dark room with no windows. And he got no supervision; Miller said the medical supervisor checked on her son “at formation” twice a day. No one knew the young man’s brain injuries left him unable to process simple information about caring for himself, he “spaced” sometimes.

When the private began to experience difficulty breathing, no one knew his history, no one was aware of his time with a tube in his throat. Miller said there were a series of events that should have warned the people in charge that Corey was in trouble, but even when he was clutching his chest, no one called the hospital. Miller said she had to call an ambulance for her son from New Mexico. When all was said and done, the doctors found that Corey’s trachea had so much scar tissue and stenosis that they could not get an airway in. Corey suffocated because of a blocked airway that no one noticed in time. Drastic measures to get air to Corey’s lungs did not work when they were applied.

Miller said the system failed. She said if she had known what lay on the other end of her decision to let her son leave the area she would never have let him go and he would be alive; finding where the things went wrong may keep some other mother from turning a healing but vulnerable son over to hands that cannot be responsible.

Corey Miller and his young mother moved to Gallup when Corey was about 2 years old.

“We grew up together,” his mother said. In his teens, the young man developed some bad tendencies, so Miller sent him to live for a while with his father in Carlsbad. When he had been in the southern city for nine months, Corey, with the help of his father, enlisted in the U.S. Army. Miller said she did not even know her son was in the Army until he was half way through boot camp. She said she has no problem with Corey joining the Army, but his father did not have custody or the authority to sign him in. And she is angry about that, too.

Corey’s father, Miller said, took control when Corey’s remains were released and held a small funeral in Carlsbad, where Corey had no life and few acquaintances. There has been no memorial service in Grants or Gallup for the young man.

“He respected his uniform, he loved being in the Army,” his mother said. Corey received a military burial with full honors in Santa Fe, but Miller did not attend. “I just couldn’t watch them put my baby in the ground,” she said.

Miller said being a soldier made her son proud in ways she did not understand until she saw his MySpace video of training. But the headstone for Corey was another mistake, Miller said. After the soldier’s date of death the stone says “Iraq.” Corey never made it to the war.

Miller said she was robbed of a funeral and her son’s friends were robbed of the opportunity to speak and to say goodbye. They have been calling and wanting to know when they can finally see Corey off. Few of Corey’s friends could make it to the Santa Fe ceremony.

Miller has not been able to put together a service for her son in New Mexico. She is has not been able to work since Corey died and she is still in shock. She has no money and may not be able to receive any money from Corey’s life insurance because the paperwork indicates she cannot be found and the settlement should go to the soldier’s father. This week, with the help of citizens of Grants, her partner Brad Hickson, and a fund at Grants State Bank, Miller has been able to arrange a memorial for Corey in Gallup July 3, at 7 p.m. at the First Baptist Church, 2112 College Drive.

A memorial will not make the loss, the disorientation, the sleepless nights or the anger go away, but, finally, it will be a chance for Corey’s survivors to mourn together. Information: Memorial — Thursday at 7 p.m. First Baptist Church, 2112 College Drive, Gallup. Donations for Miller can be made to Corey/Michelle Miller Donations Fund at Grants State Bank.

On the Web: Corey Miller’s MySpace site- http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=
user.viewprofile&friendid=75745044