AUGUSTA — Leroy J. Bailey lost his face to a mortar blast in the Vietnam War.

But the Rockland native never lost his faith, his patriotism or his innocence.

Bailey’s remains were laid to rest Tuesday at noon in the Central Maine Veterans’ Cemetery in Augusta, following the Army veteran receiving his military honors three years after his death in Lacrosse, Indiana.

In May 1968, Bailey, a 21-year-old private, had been in Vietnam for only 10 days. He was sleeping in his tent, about 30 miles southwest of Saigon, when, other soldiers told him, a rocket hit it and exploded. The mortar blew his face off, leaving him with a gaping 3-inch-deep hole where his facial features once were, a disfigurement that would remain with him through the rest of his life, although to lesser and lesser extents following some 300 surgeries he had over his lifetime.

Bailey was released from the Veterans Affairs hospital still disfigured, and blind, with only plastic eyes. He needed more surgery to be able to eat without help and to reconstruct his face, but after about three years of care, VA officials told him the VA would not pay for further surgery.

His plight received attention after the late Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote about Bailey and other soldiers who’d had inadequate care from the VA system.

That caught the eye of then-President Richard Nixon, who invited Bailey to the White House and assured him he would get the care and surgeries he needed, according to a March 1974 article about him that appeared in People magazine’s inaugural issue.

Throughout the remainder of his life, Bailey was never bitter and retained his faith in his country, his Christian belief, and his love for helping people, according to his longtime caretaker, Robyn Whatley. Whatley lived in Bailey’s Lacrosse home for 10 years, preparing his meals and taking care of him in exchange for room and board. She said he was like a father to her, and she felt like his adopted daughter.

“Despite what he went through, getting his face blown off, he was never negative, he never complained,” Whatley said while in Augusta for Bailey’s burial. “He was a very giving man. Every time we’d go out to eat, he’d tell me to find someone sitting by themselves, and he’d pay for their meal.”

Bailey spent much of his time knitting hats and scarves for women and children at homeless shelters, and he also knitted blankets he gave to animal shelters. Whatley said his knitting was precise. She said it was like he could see with his hands. He could tell when he’d missed a stitch, and could fix it. He also did leatherwork, making his own wallet, decorated with an Army symbol and American flag.

On Tuesday, Bailey was laid to rest in the cemetery on Civic Center Drive as Whatley and Bailey’s few remaining family members looked on during the brief, somber ceremony. Whatley, holding back tears, read his obituary.

The Maine Patriot Guard Riders, a group of motorcyclists who provide an escort at veterans’ funerals, held U.S. flags as Bailey received his military honors, and two soldiers carefully, painstakingly, folded an American flag in his honor. The flag was then presented to his sister, who did not wish to be interviewed.

Whatley said that several years ago Bailey, who died at 75, bought a piece of property in Rockland where the pair hoped to move and build a home for veterans. He died before they could act on that, and he never set foot there.

Michael “Cowboy” Stevenson, a Navy veteran from Ohio, was so moved by Bailey’s story he plans to include him in a book he’s working on about young soldiers killed or wounded in the Vietnam War. Stevenson had clipped the People magazine article that featured Bailey’s story in 1974, but didn’t read it then, instead filing it away. Decades later after finally reading the story, he sought Bailey out.

“I did, but too late,” as Bailey had recently died, Stevenson wrote in a roundup of different experiences he’s had with other war veterans. Stevenson said Bailey’s story is sad and horrific, but also healing and needs to be heard.

Bailey, Whatley said, prayed three times a day, every day, reading from large Braille Bibles, and every Sunday attended services at the Christian Church of Lacrosse. Church members gave Whatley $800 so she could make the trip to Maine for his burial.

“I loved Leroy with all my heart,” she said. “He was the most positive person, most innocent man, I’ve ever met. And he deserved these honors. I’m glad to see Leroy is going to be able to rest where he wanted to be.”