17 December 2018 Ann Renee Miller, of Winchester, Virginia. Annie was den mother to a couple generations of hard-charging Naval Officers- the best of the tribes of surface, submarine and aviation officers assigned to the Office of Legislative Affairs in the Pentagon. The Service sent their best and brightest to the Office of Legislative Affairs in the hopes that learning the ways of The Swamp would help the Navy in the long term.
It worked. I am one of the ones Annie took under her wing. I may not be bright, but she covered me in times of doubt and dismay amid the swamp creatures. She mentored dozens of future Flag officers and we itinerant practioners and knew far more than she ever let on.
Her life was a saga of adventure. Her Dad, Renee, was the A/ARMA in the former Yugoslavia during Marshall Tito’s breakaway from the Soviet Union. It was a privilege to capture that time when her Mom was still alive, and the vibrant portrait of her as a young woman is an icon that I hope survives in her family.
Annie had a back-story that was remarkable. She married Fred, the love of her life, at the time of the case of Loving v. Virginia, and demonstrate the resolute courage she displayed throughout her life, starting with the times she chose to climb through her girlhood window and skin down the tree to temporary freedom.
She passed from this life at 1800 [6 pm] today in the DC hospital where she had been transferred over the weekend. Mass was offered at Christendom College through the intercession of Servant of God Father Capodonna, a war hero on the path to Sainthood in his church. Annie called upon him frequently, as need be, she was in the company of saints.
She was a woman of faith, and had a personal relationship with the being she called “the Big CO.”
She was one of the lights in my life.
A renowned Attack pilot who pretended to run the office in which she worked told us that she had been a rock in his life since November of 1976. I only had the chance to have her as a pal for thirty years. My life, and those of many others, will be the poorer for her passing.
Interment details will be passed when available.
Vic