Retired Vice Admiral Jerry Miller dreamed of being a naval aviator at 10 years old.

His father brought him to see one of the new aircraft carriers in San Francisco just two years after Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Touring around the carrier with a petty officer, he fell in love.

"That was it. I knew what I wanted," Miller, 91, said.

But Miller's career took him beyond naval aviation. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1941, and reached vice admiral two years before the rest of his class. He not only commanded two fleets at one point during the Cold War, but also became deeply ingrained in the nuclear arms as part of a staff created to prepare a plan for waging nuclear war.

His book "Stockpile," about the buildup of nuclear, came out this year.

Though his desire to join the Navy came early in life, he never really thought about how it could translate into a career for him.

"Very early I wanted to be a naval aviator with a red convertible and a beautiful blonde in the passenger's seat," said Miller, who spent 38 years in active duty. "I didn't think in terms of career. I didn't think that far ahead. ... It was an ego thing in a lot of ways. I wanted to fly and the image that came with it. It wasn't very smart, to be honest with you. Pretty sophomoric, really."

He eventually got the convertible, and maybe a blonde or two in the passenger's seat, but combat made him realize just how serious his chosen path was. No experience highlighted the seriousness more than his time as a squadron commander during the Korean War.

"I took 21 guys to Korea with me. I was responsible for training them and getting them ready. About 22 percent of them didn't come back," he said, holding back tears. "So that's pretty sobering stuff. You take 21 out and five don't come back, well, it's serious business."

After those servicemen died, Miller flew to each of their houses to tell the families.

"I remember sitting up in Seattle, with the mother of a young guy whose father had died years before. She was a widow and he was her only son and the one thing she had," he said. "We just sat in the sunshine in a bench in a park in Seattle and just — she held my hand for about an hour. She had tears coming down, and I did, too."

Even with experience as sobering as combat, it's easy for those in the military to let their egos cloud reality, he said.

His time in Korea gave him flying and commanding experience he felt made him the "the hottest all-weather night-flying jet pilot we've got." He thought for sure they'd give him some grand post as a reward.

"I ended up in the bureau of personnel. I traded my jet squadron for two adding machines and a desk," Miller said.

He became somewhat disenchanted with the military, so he set out to get a job in the private sector. On the day he was to resign, his boss approached him about a memo Miller had written about the archaic equipment. Miller had suggested the Navy look into moving toward digital computers—in 1953.

"I could spell the world digital in 1953. That made me an expert. I was the Bill Gates of the '50s," he joked.

His supervisor wanted to put him in charge of a new effort to integrate digital computers into the Navy, a challenge Miller did not want to pass up.

"So I tore up the resignation and went to work on getting digital computers into the Navy," he said. "Within four years, the Navy was leader in the world for using digital computers."

Not long after, Miller received a call that he would be promoted to captain, two years ahead of the rest of his class.

"Because I flew well? No. Because of a damn digital computer," Miller said. "That's the nature of the service, though. You go do what you can do, you do the best you can, you see something that's wrong you try to fix it, and it pays off."

Eventually, he retired from the Navy, and donated money to the Congressional Schools of Virginia to help start an athletic program. The school began having trouble getting the children to their games, so at the age of 72, Miller began driving a school bus for the next eight years: "Now that was responsibility."

But nothing beats his time in the military, he said.

"Every person is born with a desire, I think, to make a contribution," Miller said. "To do something to pay back. One thing about the military, especially if you get into combat, is you did that."