He never stared down the barrell of an enemy gun, nor hid in muddy rivers, crawled through swampy jungles, or suffered napalm burns, but that did not mean the war in Vietnam was any less real or dangerous to Staff Sergeant Robert (Bobby) Miller during his two tours of duty there.

Like everyone who served in that Asian theatre, the young Bermudian knew that there were no guarantees that some day, somewhere a lethal projectile would not find its target and destroy his life, so close combat training and constant vigilance became part of his stock-in-trade.

How Mr. Miller came to serve with the American forces when he had spent all of his life in Bermuda was actually a mistake, which he only discovered after serving his time.

Born to a Bermudian mother in the United States gave him dual citizenship, and therefore a social security number - something he thought nothing about as he left high school because he had never revisited the US since his birth. Instead, he had settled into his first job at American International, and planned to live in Bermuda for the rest of his life.

Two months after starting work, however, the teenager received his US draft papers in the post. While his grandfather had served in the British Army in the First World War, and his father in the United States Navy in the Second World War, and he himself had been a member of the Bermuda Cadet Corps for four years, Bobby Miller had no desire to pursue a military career, so he turned to his cousin, then serving in the United States Air Force at Kindley Field, for advice. The response put paid to any thoughts the young man had of ignoring the draft.

"He told me I would have to honour the draft notice, and suggested that if I didn't want to do that and end up in the army, I should enlist in the Air Force instead. Well, I was just 17 and had never been out of Bermuda, so I saw it as a chance to go and see some of the world and have some fun, so I went to New York City and enlisted," Mr. Miller says.

With boot camp in Texas completed, the rookie airman was moved on to Mississippi for technical training as a radio operator before being posted to his first assignment, ostensibly in Australia. But it was not to be. En route he was stopped in Hawaii, where he was told he would spend the next three years. If that seemed idyllic for an island lad, reality proved somewhat different because a monthly pay cheque of $100 didn't take him very far.

In April, 1977, Bobby Miller was sent to Vietnam to the 1876 Communications Squadron. He was 22 years old, in the prime of life, and with no real concept of just how bad the war in that far-off country was.

"I found out when I got there that a lot more was going on than was in the news," he says.

Posted to Tan Son Nhut air base, which was also Saigon's international airport, the radio operator's duties included communicating with fighter aircraft and directing them to strike targets called up by officers in the battle zones. The work was sensitive and exacting, and required total concentration. For security and other reasons, his operations room was located at the outmost edge of base, and the "office" was a windowless, reinforced concrete structure.

"We worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week, and only every now and then would they give you a day off," the former radio operator says.

The din of helicopters and aircraft overhead was constant, and the sounds of war could be heard in the distance, particularly at night.

"You never knew half the time what the explosions were. So long as they didn't make a hole in me, I was happy," Mr. Miller says. "We were well aware of what went on out there, and we had training sessions on what to avoid because we never knew where we would be sent. They just prepared everybody for everything."

In fact, the Bermudian had undergone extensive weapons training in the Philippines.

Many false alarms sent S/Sgt. Miller and his buddies scurrying to the nearby bunkers, but generally speaking life could have been much worse, and they all felt safe walking around Saigon on his rare days off. Of course, the people were used to seeing Americans about the city and were generally friendly.

"Saigon was just downtown for us, so just to get off base and clear our heads, we would walk around, take some pictures, and most of the time have a couple of beers. There was a USO club in town where we could go and get American hamburgers, although the water was not very good so we had to be careful," Mr. Miller says.

On base, Vietnamese men and women did menial jobs like mowing lawns and acting as domestics in the barracks.

"For a few dollars a month the women would clean and tidy the barracks and do our laundry," Mr. Miller says.

Due to the extreme and perpetual heat, uniforms quickly became soaked with sweat, and it was nothing for the men to change clothes several times a day, so help with the laundry was a boon.

All in all, life in the Saigon area could have been a lot worse. Then came the infamous Tet offensive of 1968.

"This was their lunar New Year, and we had been told we would hear exploding fireworks and celebratory gunfire, but we had a feeling something was going to happen," Mr. Miller says. "I was working the night shift and we saw the whole sky light up, with flares going off and explosions, and the next thing we knew a lot of bases were being attacked, as well as the downtown American Embassy. We were told to stay at our posts until relieved, which took two days."

Once we had a rocket go through the roof of our barracks into the one next door, where it killed some guys. Our ears were ringing and we were half asleep, and when it hit the ground it blew people right out of bed. I was in the top bunk, and I think I was running before I hit the floor! You smelled smoke and instinctively just ran for the bunker. We weren't armed either - all our weapons were at work because most of the Air Force were non-combatants."

Dead bodies along the roads were a familiar sight, but after the Tet offensive there were so many that it took days to remove them. Meanwhile, the stench of corpses rotting in the heat was overpowering.

Mr. Miller also remembers the surprise of learning that some of the "friendly" Vietnamese who worked on base by day were the same ones who were found climbing over the perimeter fences at night as the enemy.

One year after arriving in Vietnam, he was posted to Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base on the Cambodian border in Thailand with the 1973rd Communications Squadron. Again, his work involved directing fighter pilots to their targets as they flew on their deadly sorties into Vietnam.

Because of the Base's proximity to Bangkok, Mr. Miller got to see the city and observe its people, whom he found very friendly.

Sent back to the US at the end of his tour of duty, the young Bermudian might have counted his blessings at returning unscathed, and simply enjoyed the safe life, but with all the skills he had acquired, and the excitement of executing them in a theatre of war, Bobby Miller found the country too "civilised" to endure, so in 1971 he re-enlisted for a second tour of duty in Vietnam with the 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron at Bien Hoa, about 30 miles outside Saigon.

By then he was a Staff Sergeant in charge of a section, and very good at his job. In addition to his regular duties, he volunteered to fly around delivering mail and classified material to various US outposts, a job for which an Army helicopter gunship was placed at his disposal.

As the war wound down, S/Sgt. Miller was involved in the handover of equipment and the training of Vietnamese to take over positions formerly held by the Americans - a task made "interesting" because neither side spoke the other's language.

Nonetheless, he left Vietnam in 1972 with a chest full of medals, including the Vietnamese Honour Medal, 2nd class, which was presented by Vietnamese army General Nguyen Van "Big" Minh in appreciation of his "efforts in Vietnamisation".

Other military decorations included the Air Force Commendation Medal; Presidential Unit Citation; Air Force Outstanding Unit Award; Expert Marksmanship: Good Conduct Medal; Vietnam Service Medal; Vietnam Defense Medal, National Defense Medal, and the Bronze Star.

Reassigned to a "boring" California base in 1972, Bobby Miller decided that, after nine years in the military, it was time to "get out, and find a real job" so home to Bermuda he came, where he has remained ever since, working as a graphic artist.