Mrs. May Lee Soung
Nurse During the Secret War
SGU Veteran
St. Paul, MN
File No.: 24/50
May 2024

May Lee Soung was born in 1957 in Xieng Khouang, Laos. Her older sister was a nurse, and May followed in her footsteps as early as age 11, when she enrolled in an apprenticeship program. As a young nurse during the Secret War, she became a provider for her family. She worked at Sam Thong hospital, a medical hub for the country’s Military Region 2. She treated soldiers with all sorts of wounds and civilians with health issues. She watched soldiers whose wounds were beyond treatment die slowly in front of her eyes. By the late 1960s, Sam Thong was under siege by the North Vietnamese Army. The nurses and medical staff were forced to move to the new location at Na Su. When the war came to a violent end in 1975, May and her family left for Vientiane. There, they hired a boat to take them across the Mekong River to Thailand to escape persecution by the communist Lao regime. Less than a year later, they immigrated to the US. May then completed her Certified Nursing Assistant program. Her first job at a nursing home paid her $6 an hour. ∆

*** Video has been edited and modified, which the correspondence from the video may different from the transcription. Please review the transcription as needed to reflect video flow. English transcription for this interview is available upon request.