AUGUST 25, 2025 – Army Sgt. William Wayne Seay risked his life numerous times to save his comrades as their convoy was ambushed during an important mission in the Vietnam War. He didn’t survive the firefight to tell his story, but his selfless actions led to a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Seay was born Oct. 24, 1948, in Brewton, Alabama, to Pauline and William Seay. He had an older sister named Sarah.
Known to everyone as Billy, Seay loved fishing and the outdoors, which led him to join the Boy Scouts. He spent a large chunk of his childhood in Brewton before his family moved to Pensacola, Florida, in 1964.
Shortly after his freshman year of high school, Seay dropped out to join the newly created Job Corps, a Labor Department program that offered free education and vocational training to people as young as 16. He worked for the Job Corps in Montana and Texas, earning his GED along the way.
By 1967, when he was still 17, Seay came home to visit and told his family that he was going to join the Army. According to a 2021 interview with his sister in the Andalusia Star News newspaper out of Andalusia, Alabama, they tried to talk him out of it, but he enlisted anyway. He even had a portion of his pay sent home to his mother every month.
After basic training, Seay was stationed in Fort Collins, Colorado, before deploying to Vietnam in October 1967 as a driver assigned to 62nd Transportation Company, 7th Transportation Battalion, 48th Transportation Group.
On Aug. 25, 1968, Seay was part of an 81-truck convoy on a critical resupply mission from Long Binh to Tay Ninh in South Vietnam. The convoy was supported by eight Military Police gun jeeps, but poor visibility and low cloud ceilings due to the rainy season meant support from the air would be unlikely.
As the convoy passed through the village of Ap Nhi, it was ambushed by a reinforced battalion of well-concealed enemy soldiers. The first 30 trucks escaped their grasp; however, the enemy set fires near the front and the rear of the convoy, trapping the trucks in between. Soon, they were being attacked by intense rocket, machine gun and automatic weapons fire.
When Seay’s truck was forced to stop, he immediately jumped out and took a defensive position behind the wheels of a vehicle loaded with highly explosive ammunition. As the enemy got to within 30 feet of the road, Seay opened fire, killing two insurgents. He then took out a sniper whom he’d spotted in a tree about one-half mile in front of him.
When an enemy grenade landed under a nearby ammunition trailer, Seay didn’t hesitate to run out, grab it and throw it back — a bold move that killed four more enemy soldiers and saved several of his nearby comrades. When another grenade landed about 10 feet from him, he again left his cover, grabbed the explosive device and threw it back.
On the way back to his position that time, Seay was seriously wounded in his right wrist, but he refused to quit the fight and instead continued to encourage and direct his fellow soldiers.
When Seay moved to the relative cover of a shallow ditch, he noticed three enemy soldiers who had crept into their position and were about to open fire on his comrades. Despite not having the use of his right hand and being weak from blood loss, Seay stood up and used his remaining hand to fire his rifle, killing all three combatants and saving the men around him.
Sadly, soon after, Seay was hit in the head by a sniper’s bullet and died instantly. He was less than two months from completing his deployment.
For making the ultimate sacrifice and saving numerous soldiers, the young sergeant received a posthumous Medal of Honor. His mother accepted the award on his behalf from President Richard M. Nixon during a White House ceremony on April 7, 1970.
Seay is buried in Weaver Cemetery in his hometown.
Seay’s heroics have not been forgotten. Numerous gathering places have been named in his honor over the years, including military parade fields, tugboats and barracks, as well as a shopping mall and a portion of a highway near his hometown. In June 1998, the Navy christened the cargo ship USNS Seay in his honor. In 2009, U.S. Transportation Command named its auditorium on Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, after him.
By Katie Lange
DOD News