August 01, 2010 07:36 AM UTC

Charley Miller - Unaffiliated for Colorado US Senate

• 6 Comments
• by: charleymiller2010

I grew up in a military family.  After the Korean war, my father met and married my mother in Japan.  I’m proud of the fact that my mother gained her American citizenship by naturalizing.  I grew up hearing my mom all thru the night reciting the pledge of Allegiance.  Like my father, I enlisted and spent 6 years in the Air Force and am proud of serving my country.

In the late 1980’s, I went to work in the banking industry during the savings and loan crisis.  Some of you can recall that.  This was a time when thousands of Americans lost their jobs and 1300 separate financial institutions, big banks,  failed.  I’m proud of the fact that the government did not bail them out. This was before “government bail outs” when banks weren’t considered too big to fail.  For 3 years, I worked with the critical people working with the federal government, from start to finish on resolving the S&L crisis.

However, all this changed in 1991.  I was involved in a near death accident, but by the grace of God, I didn’t die.  However, I was in a coma and suffered a severe brain injury. I couldn’t speak, talk, or walk.  I couldn’t do the simple day-to-day tasks that I did before.  The doctors said I would NEVER be able to learn anything, or do simple tasks and certainly, not be able to go to school.

Every day for 5 year, every day was a personal struggle, where I dealt with severe headaches, irritability, anger and stress, commonly called PTSD, due to the fact that I was physically unable to do even simple things like many of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.  Folks, I was only in my early 30’s when this happened.  Life would no longer be the same for me.

But I’m a fighter.  I wasn’t willing to accept defeat. I decided to do something that everyone else considered impossible.  Every day I worked on re-learning how to do these simple tasks and hoping each day for any small improvements.  I didn’t give up.  My doctors now say it’s a miracle because they believed that it was impossible to retrain my brain and ever recover from an injury like this.  I didn’t!

Since the accident, I completed 2 Bachelor’s degrees in Arizona and moved to Colorado to attend the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley where I completed a Masters in History.  And, recently completed my Law Degree at DU Law school.  But I’m not a lawyer  And, I also just recently received my Leed AP which is a professional certification for green sustainable buildings.  While in school, I started several small start up businesses and recently created a non-profit 501(3)c, committed to sustainability and green ideas.

Hard to imagine that less than 20 years ago, I couldn’t do the 3 R’s (reading writing & arithmetic).  But I did it!

I’ve come a long way and my political background in limited to just one neighborhood advocacy group I created in Greeley where I successfully defeated a “good-ole boy” network, brought Democrats and Republicans together in a non-partisan effort on a community issue that people said was impossible to defeat.

I know for a fact, from my own personal experience, that we can do what people might call impossible.  With my strong faith in God, perseverance and fighting against all odds, I won.  I stand here as proof of that. The power of prayer is true, God Bless America, and God Bless you.