MUSCATINE, Iowa — One woman holds two of the highest-ranking positions in military medicine, and she just so happens to be from Muscatine.
Rear Admiral Pamela Miller is both the Medical Officer of the Marine Corps and Vice Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for Reserve Policy and Integration. That means she's the top medical official for the Marine Corps, and oversees all Navy Reserve medicine for the Surgeon General of the Navy.
Miller was born and raised in Muscatine with two brothers and a sister. Each went on to have successful careers thanks to her mother's hard work. Her brothers were both Marines, something she aspired to, but she also wanted to be a nurse like her mother.
"So my brother said to me one day, 'Well that’s great that you want to join the military, but I thought you wanted to be a nurse?' and I said 'I am,' and he said, 'Well then you're not going to join the Marine Corps,'" Miller said. "And I was heartbroken, I didn’t understand what he meant, and then he said, 'But you can join the Navy, because that’s who provides all the medical support to the Navy and the Marine Corps.' So I was then in my happy place again."
And that's exactly what she did. After going to medical school at Des Moines University on a Navy scholarship, she deployed from Camp Pendleton to Al Taqaddum, Iraq in 2006.
"You know, deployments of those types are life-changing," Miller said. "You don't bring everybody home. And that stays with you. They’re like little thumbprints in your mind."
As she travels the world overseeing medical personnel, she brings Muscatine with her.
"The first thing I have to do sometimes is get out a map and show people in other countries, where Iowa is," Miller said. "You just kind of well up with a little bit of pride, you know, because there's so many things people don't know about our city."
But after nearly 35 years of service, Miller is ready to retire from the Navy in October 2025.
"I still have a good 10 to 12 working years, so I don't know what that next job is gonna be," Miller said. "What I am looking forward to is having more liberty to come home."
And with the end of her military career, another hero is added to her hometown's story.
"I'm just one person, there's I'm sure there's many other people that have done amazing things out of Muscatine, but I will always be proud to have been from here," Miller said.
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