Henry C. May Jr. was 19 years old in 1965 when a Viet Cong mine exploded beneath him, injuring both of the marine’s legs.
He was Lake County’s first known casualty in Vietnam, as reported in a 1965 News-Sun story. On Aug. 9, it will be 50 years since the 69-year-old Zion resident sustained those injuries.
Interviewed at his home earlier this week, May said he had just returned to Vietnam after rest and recuperation time in Hong Kong. Upon his return, May was ordered to take part in a battalion patrol he thought was already completed while he was away.
“I thought I had missed this particular patrol,” May said. “I got back, and like I said, it was waiting on me. We went out and I knew. I just knew.”
On Aug. 9, 1965, he set off to set up a guard perimeter at Chu Lai beach.
That’s when May heard a “big boom.” The explosion injured May and nine other Marines, according to the 1965 News-Sun article.
“I didn’t feel anything initially, but I knew I was hurt because I crumbled,” May said. “I started screaming for a medic, and the medic was busy waiting on other people.”
May returned home after a hospitalization in the Philippines. It took several days of travel, a trip filled with excruciating pain, before May would return to Lake County, where he received more treatment at the now demolished Great Lakes Naval Hospital.
“I guess when your legs are messed up, you feel every pebble in the road,” May said.
When May spoke to the News-Sun later that month from a hospital bed at Great Lakes, with his left leg still in a cast and resting atop a pillow, he knew his days in the military were most likely over. He received his official medical discharge notice on May 31, 1966.
In addition to several surgeries over the years, May credited his recovery to his youth and said the experience gave him a new perspective.
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“I always took from that … the attitude is always that I could still do anything I want to do, I just can’t do it as well as other people,” May said.
Today, May is proud to say he has done well for himself. He also is thankful that he did not experience some of the more gruesome sights soldiers who fought later in the war saw.
“To be quite honest, I never saw the stuff other guys saw. Never,” May said. “Now that was my blessing.”
May tells himself that everything that has happened in his life happened for a reason and that God was behind all of it.
“I’m still here, and I’m grateful for that,” May said.
When May spoke to the News-Sun weeks after he sustained his injuries, he said he would not go through it again. Now, though, he said he would.
“I think every young man needs to do at least two years in the service. I really, really do,” May said. “It makes you grow up, it teaches you responsibility; all those things I think everyone needs.”
May received a Purple Heart and wears a replica pin of the medal along with a Marine Corps pin on a hat that reads “Vietnam Veteran.” He doesn’t, however, have his original dress blues, the formal Marine Corps uniform. He said he never got it back after his 1965 hospital stay.
“I would love to have a pair of dress blues,” May said. “It’s OK if I don’t, but that’s just one thing I wanted.”
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