My journey ends here...
MILLER Kermit
Date of birth : October 4th 1912.
Date of death : October 17th 2003, Southbury, Connecticut.
Elder brother of Arthur Miller.
In 1929, he attended the James Madison High School in Brooklyn.
In June 1930 he graduated from the Madison High School and was admitted at the New York University.
During Summer 1930, Arthur and Kermit were committed in the fight to save their father's company, the "Miltex Coat and Suit Company".
During Fall 1931, Kermit did not do his second year at the university, but worked full-time at the Miltex.
He married Frances, a young intellectual woman, Jewish, native to Coney Island, Brooklyn. They had a son, Ross.
Spring 1942 : Kermit and Frances had just married when Kermit joined the Army. He was sent to the Officer's Candidate School, (because he had attended junior high school), was named first lieutenant and assigned to lead an infantry branch.
In 1944 Kermit, was in the middle of the struggle. 7 months earlier, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, he had landed at Omaha Beach, Normandy. While Arthur arrived in Broadway, Kermit led his infantry men branch through the Ardennes woods, towards the German-Belgium border.There were 19 000 American killed and 81 000 injured, including Kermit. Held down by the enemy fires, and unable to escape from his small hole, he was trapped by the snow for a week. Thus, his feet were frost-bitten with the gangrene risk, a condition which raged within the troops. Because of the possibility of an amputation, he was carried from the trench to a war hospital.
Around the end of 1945Kermit
joined the civil life. He had escaped the gangrene and his feet were
intact. But he kept on suffering from what was called the "battle
fatigue".
After having been treated, he was released from a
veteran hospital, but at that time, there were few informations about
this trouble which affected the soldiers. He was treated with
electroshock therapy before being sent home, where he went back to
work, as a salesman in a carpet company. When selling became
uncomfortable to him, he went directly to work at the wholesale
company, where he worked until the end. Kermit Miller had changed a
lot, and until the end of his life, he suffered from nervous breakdown
periods and occasional losses of memory.
He attended the religious wedding ceremony of Arthur and
Marilyn on July 1st 1956 :
,
.
with his parents
,
with Arthur and Joan
with his wife Frances
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