William Miller was born in Sapulpa, Oklahoma in 1925. His family soon moved to Borger, the largest city in Hutchinson County, Texas, where Miller spent his childhood and picked up the accent he would use into adulthood. The nascent town experienced an oil boom up until the Great Depression, during which it underwent extensive development under the Work Projects Administration. Miller's father, previously a cab driver, became the town's fire chief. After attending Amarillo College for the 1941–1942 school year, he received an appointment to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and he graduated from there in 1945 with a B.S. degree in marine engineering. From 1945 to 1949, Miller served as a Coast Guard officer in Asia and on the U.S. West Coast. During his time with the Coast Guard, he met Ariadna Rogojarsky, a Russian emigre; they married in 1946.