An Unparalleled Legacy

BY Paul Rogers

For Vietnam Veterans of America, the “no one left behind” ethos is paramount. It extends beyond the battlefield into veterans’ lives, including to veterans who find themselves on the wrong side of the law and in the U.S. prison system. This was the core philosophy of Wayne Miller, a seminary student turned U.S. Navy electrician who chaired VVA’s Veterans Incarcerated Committee and was a dedicated activist for veterans in the justice system from the mid-1980s until his death last May.

“Wayne Miller was an early advocate who was thoroughly dedicated to improving the plight of veterans incarcerated and getting them organized,” said Mokie Porter, VVA’s Director of Communications. “He realized that when they were [organized], they had an advantage because they already had the military structure.” Porter added that Miller first and foremost aimed to “restore their honor and remind them of where they came from and who they were.”

Miller helped improve conditions for veterans and also worked tirelessly to smooth their transition back into their communities. Simultaneously, he strove to keep veterans out of prison by raising awareness of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder at a time when it was seldom discussed or fully understood.

VVA Photo

By the late 1990s, Miller’s work was written into VVA’s Constitution, with language stating that the organization’s Veterans Incarcerated Committee “Shall develop programs of awareness with regard to the special needs of veterans who are presently or formerly incarcerated … [And] act as liaison with the State Council and Chapter Veterans Incarcerated Committees, and with members of VVA who are incarcerated.”

For much of Miller’s 1970-73 military service, he was attached to Beach Jumper Unit 2, which was based in Little Creek, Virginia, and included a deployment to Coronado, California. He was a co-founder of Chapter 20 in Rochester, New York, in 1981 and one of the original incorporators for the U.S. Navy Beach Jumpers Association in 2003. Miller worked as a lineman for Rochester Gas and Electric while making time for relentless veterans’ advocacy.

“I went in [to prisons] a few times with him,” said founding AVVA president Nancy Switzer, who, with her late husband Rick, was close friends with Miller, “and the first thing out of his mouth would be, ‘I want you to know that there are people on the outside who are worried about you and care about you.’ ”

Along with like-minded advocates, Miller began helping veterans incarcerated form VVA chapters, accessing VA health care and, in some cases, getting shared housing together rather than among the general prison population. “Chapters in some prisons have proven to be viable and effective,” Miller wrote in 1998. “[Some] have organized large service projects to raise funds for local charities and community organizations.”

“Wayne was a deeply compassionate guy, very quiet – you almost had to struggle to hear him when he talked,” said longtime VVA leader Jim Doyle, who began working with veterans in California’s San Quentin State Prison in 1986. “He was the guy who made other people think that just because they’re in prison doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad people.”

Miller insisted that VVA refer to veterans behind bars as “veterans incarcerated” rather than “incarcerated veterans,” because they were veterans first. He was acutely aware that they were among the least visible, the least accessible, and, therefore, among the most vulnerable groups of veterans. Many had returned from Vietnam with PTSD and lacked family, social, or medical support systems.

California Department of Corrections

“[Some] came from broken families or from a place that was as bad when they returned as when they left,” said Dominick Yezzo, who chairs VVA’s Veterans Incarcerated and in the Justice System Committee. “A guy’s been a helicopter door gunner for two years and before that a high school dropout. He comes home, no job, nobody wants to look at him, the uniform is a disgrace, [and] you have all this memory of hardship, hurt, disorder, and destruction.”

While prison administrators were wary of inmate organizations turning into gangs, Miller and his colleagues often found sympathetic allies among prison guards, many of whom were veterans themselves. “One of the key aspects of this whole business, even very early on, was the relationship with the guards,” said former VVA president John Rowan. “A lot of [veterans] ended up in jail because of PTSD and that was understood by the guards as well as the prisoners. The prisoners respected the guards, and the guards respected the prisoners.”

Miller, Rowan, and others lobbied to have veterans housed together behind bars, which offered many benefits for inmates who may have felt isolated and misunderstood amid the general prison population. “That happened in several places, even in Attica, a hardcore prison where people were doing life sentences,” Rowan said. “They were able to use the background of the guards and the veterans to keep things calm. They would get them into more of a military situation.”

“When you put veterans in a separate ward, there are zero discipline problems,” Yezzo added. “Not one issue; not one fight; not one body not showing up for work; no wise guys. They become troops on a mission.”

At the end of the 1990s, a U.S. Justice Department report revealed that, despite common perceptions to the contrary, veterans were being incarcerated at less than half the rate of non-veterans. Yet an estimated 56,500 Vietnam War veterans remained behind bars and the rate of their incarceration was steadily rising.

To counter that trend, Miller helped establish the first Veterans Treatment Court in Buffalo, New York, in 2008. The new program, which allowed veterans facing minor criminal charges and experiencing addiction or mental illness to avoid jail, soon spread nationwide.

Along with his work inside prisons, Miller lobbied legislators to update their attitudes toward veterans in the justice system. One such veteran incarcerated was Ernie Bullock, a two-tour Vietnam veteran with severe PTSD who met Miller while serving 50 years to life in New York’s Auburn Correctional Facility. Miller worked closely with Bullock, including after his 2006 release.

“There was a conference in Washington and Wayne invited me to accompany him,” Bullock said. “I think that what Wayne had to share, what I had to share, contributed greatly to helping meet additional needs that were still not being met for incarcerated veterans.”

Miller was cognizant of PTSD and its potential role in criminal behavior even before those connections were widely recognized. Raising justice system awareness of service-connected PTSD – which, left untreated, often can grow more severe during incarceration – was among his key contributions to the lives of veterans in the justice system.

“We do not believe all veterans are afflicted with PTSD, that all veterans with PTSD are substance abusers, or that all veterans with PTSD will become criminals,” wrote Miller in a 1998 White Paper published in The VVA Veteran. “Rather, the point we wish to make is that for some people, the logical and ‘rational’ reaction to a seemingly irrational world is to act out in a manner that broader society would characterize as ‘irrational.’”

Yet access to VA health care for veterans incarcerated was problematic. Many state departments of corrections did not allow VA physicians onto their premises and, even where they did, poor communication and coordination hampered delivery of services.

“For far too long there have been far too many veterans languishing in prison with unattended service-connected conditions,” Miller said in 2000. “Regardless of what these veterans did to get into prison, a service-connected condition is a service-connected condition. It is still the role of the VA and this nation to attend to such conditions.”

While VVA service officers started helping veterans incarcerated file VA claims, obtaining VA medical exams continued to prove challenging. In some cases, the VA would only help incarcerated veterans if they were in a VA hospital. According to a 1984 report, inmates had to pay $200 for a prison guard to accompany them to such a facility, an undertaking further complicated by VA regulations that forbade armed corrections officers from entering their facilities. But by 1998, Miller reported that, due to VVA’s advocacy, VA facilities were sending doctors inside prisons to conduct exams and provide treatment.

Wayne Miller stood with veterans as they re-entered their communities, helping them gain access to resources and secure work, with the goal of reducing recidivism. By the late 1990s, a few states were working with VVA to develop formal programs to prepare prisoners for release, with classes including job skills development, resume and job application training, GED programs, and PTSD counseling.

“Wayne was very instrumental when I got released,” said Bullock, who earned a master’s degree behind bars and subsequently went to work for the VA. “Wayne helped inspire me and helped me to not give up when I came out of the prison system.”

In 2013, the Veterans Incarcerated Committee, with Miller as a special adviser, decided to focus on implementing veteran reentry and transitional programs – work that continues to this day.

“We enter the facility six or eight months prior to the release of a veteran,” Yezzo said. “We embrace that man, we try to put him together with a chapter, and we’re there when he departs. We have food, water, clothing, and job opportunities.”

“Wayne made the system realize that they were veterans, and they had problems, and you don’t lock somebody up because they had a one-time terrible event,” said Switzer. “And his legacy is still going on.”

A modest man who did much of his work behind the scenes, Wayne Miller’s legacy perhaps doesn’t linger as brightly as it should.

“So often, the people who laid the groundwork and actually did the organizing, their presence disappears,” said Porter, who has worked for VVA for 39 years. “Wayne Miller was a quiet organizer and an advocate and completely dedicated.”

In 2013, Miller received VVA’s highest award, the Commendation Medal, in recognition of his strong leadership and commitment to veterans incarcerated. But Miller’s active compassion for fellow veterans, regardless of where fate had taken them, will likely be remembered long after formal accolades fade.

“Wayne touched hearts and minds [and] had an empathetic ear,” said Bullock, who today is a pastor who counsels veterans. “He would not let it go; he would not turn his back on it; he would never leave another veteran behind.”

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