Walter M. Miller Jr (1923- 1996) Walter Michael Miller Jr grew up in the American south. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps a month after Pearl Harbor and spent most of the war as a radio operator and gunner, participating in fifty-five combat sorties over Italy and the Balkans, including the assault on Monte Cassino. After the war he studied engineering before turning to writing. A Canticle for Leibowitz won a Hugo Award, and his only other novel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horsewoman was published posthumously.