Grace Porter Miller - 1921
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I. Biography Grace Porter Miller served along with the small number of three hundred thousand American women and the large number of more than twelve million American men in World
War II. Miller was one of several women soldiers to tell the story of the sacrifices made by women during World War II and how they deserve just as much gratification as men do.
Grace Porter Miller was born on a ranch west of Roundup, Montana in 1921. She later moved to Iowa and taught kindergarten. In 1942, she turned twenty-one and was allowed to join the Army.
Miller volunteered a total of three times – first to join the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC); second to join the Women's Army Corps (WAC); third, when she had the
chance, to go overseas. Miller traveled to London, over the North Atlantic, to serve as a cryptographic technician during the campaigns of Normandy, Northern France, Rhinland,
Central Europe and Air Offensive Europe. She worked in these areas safely away from, and once accidentally across, enemy lines. She and the WAC's endured a shocking ratio of
thirty-nine WAC soldiers to one thousand male soldiers. After the war, Grace Porter Miller did a great many things. She taught handicapped
children, worked tirelessly as an extension agent on the Fort Belknap reservation in northern Montana, and taught Navajo children in New Mexico. Miller settled for a while in
Havre, Montana working as an editor for the Havre Daily News. She now lives in Prescott, Arizona near some of her four children. Grace Porter Miller wrote the book titled
Call of duty, A Montana Girl in World War II. Her book relates to the experiences she had in World War II as a cryptographic technician.
She dedicates her book to her four children, but I believe that the book has an unwritten dedication to the women that served along side her and made the same sacrifices. Miller,
and many others, believed that women were considered second class soldiers and most Americans, including our government, usually did not consider servicewomen to be veterans.
The fact Miller waited over fifty years to write her memoirs is significant. This time lapse allowed her to write about subjects that were not considered appropriate topics for
discussion and to avoid the upbeat and happy recounts of earlier authors. We are fortunate her children's persuasion eventually encouraged her to write this book. Her
balance between the adventure of traveling the world and the horrors of war give a true balance to her writing. To quote Grace Porter Miller, "So why did I enlist in the army? Why did I volunteer three
times……? When I ask myself these questions, I can only answer, because I am an American. And I love my country." This essay was submitted by a student of Steve Gardiner, a teacher at Billings Senior High
School in Billings, Montana.