Pfc. Martin Miller, left, and his dad, Sgt. 1st Class Martin Miller, serve in the same Army squadron in Afghanistan.

Their brigade -- based at North Carolina's Fort Bragg -- is among the first specifically assigned to train Afghan security and military forces.

"If the phone rings in the middle of the night, I answer it no matter what," said Mary Lisa Miller. "You never know. It could be the last call." 

The Miller men -- both paratroopers -- didn't really plan to march shoulder-to-shoulder into harm's way. It just sort of happened that way.

"I pretty much have always wanted to be in the Army," said Pfc. Miller, who remembers watching his dad leap out of military aircraft with other soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division. "I guess watching him do it -- it looked cool," he said.

Shortly before they deployed in August, the Millers revisited family memories at Fort Bragg's Wilson Park -- the same spot where the couple picnicked with their toddler son and daughter years ago.

Telling family stories, the Millers laughed about old snapshots showing the future private first class as a boy -- standing at parade rest while his father spoke to him.

"When I scolded him and his sister, I taught them to stand at parade rest," Sgt. Miller explained. "Then their punishment would be laps, flutter kicks, push-ups and sit-ups. It taught discipline and put them in good shape."

After high school, dad convinced his son to try a year of college first. Soldiers with college degrees go further in the service, Sgt. Miller said.

But a year later it was clear the young man's interests were in the Army. After all, growing up with a warrior father tends to influence a boy. Sgt. Miller did what he could to have his son stationed at Fort Bragg. He ended up in the same squadron.

The father and son describe themselves as close. "Yeah, we're always doing something together," Pfc. Miller said. "We go out and party together and we fish and ride motorcycles."

Walking together wearing red Airborne berets marked with their distinctive squadron flashes, the Millers talked about what it means to be a military family and how this life of service often extends to civilian spouses and children.

"Back when I was a kid, there were a lot of people who saw the Army as something good," said Sgt. Miller, 46, who enlisted a year out of high school. "Everybody should do a little bit for their country."

Although the Millers serve in the same squadron, they are in different troops -- and therefore don't share the same chain of command.

"He can't work directly for me," Sgt Miller said. "Family members are not supposed to work directly for other family members. But my platoon possibly would work with his."

Unlike his previous tours of duty, Sgt. Miller now bears two heavy burdens: command and fatherhood. The possibility that his son could lose his life while serving in the same squadron has crossed his mind.

"If something happens to him, I can still function, but it won't be pretty," the sergeant said. "But knowing others depend on me, I can't get all broken up about it. If something were going to happen to him, I'd probably break when I got back."

'Navy brat'

Marylisa Miller has known the military since birth. She is the seventh of eight "Navy brats" born to a father who chose a sailor's life and moved his family from assignment to assignment.

In the early '80s she met the man who would be her warrior husband. Shyly, she said they met in a bar.

"It wasn't a bar," her husband said, smiling. "They say she's kind of like me: kind of hard-headed, a little bit stubborn and not afraid to voice my opinion."

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