Vietnam war volunteer's legacy lives on
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Thirty-three years ago, faced with a choice that confronted many of his generation, Brian Kong made a decision. A top student in the University of Hawai'i Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, the 23-year-old volunteered to be an infantry officer in Vietnam.
Photo courtesy of Kong family
The decision cost him his life.
First Lt. Brian Kong, killed in action in 1971 a week before he was to leave Vietnam, never resented his friend’s decision to stay out of the war as a conscientious objector.
Kong was honored yesterday during an ROTC ceremony at which two cadets, Matthew Sun and Nicholas Dvonch, both too young to remember the war in Vietnam, were given awards that bore his name.
"He totally represents everything we strive to be," Sun said of Kong after the ceremony. "He put duty first."
"People talk about Army values," Dvonch said. "He lived them."
Brad Smith, who graduated with Kong in 1969 and made a different choice that year, wiped tears from his eyes as he watched the ceremony. Like Kong, he said, the young cadets were handsome in their uniforms, sweeping up awards, looking forward to bright futures.
Smith and Kong were friends in college. Neither thought the war in Vietnam was good for Vietnam or the United States.
Though Smith became a conscientious objector, neither faulted the other for the decisions they made.
"Even back in '69, neither Brian nor I were absolutely convinced without a shadow of a doubt that we had it right and the other guy had it wrong," he said.
The years have only made the issues more gray. Smith said he has never fully come to terms with Brian's death.
"It's still raw," he said.
A framed photograph of the Vietnam Memorial, donated by two of Kong's contemporaries, was unveiled yesterday during the ceremony. It will hang on a wall in memory of Kong, said Lt. Col. Bob Takao, who heads the ROTC detachment.
Guest speakers at the ceremony, including Gov. Ben Cayetano, spoke of Kong's courage. U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, who met the young Kong while the cadet was still in ROTC, sent a letter honoring his life. U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink sent Edith Kong, Brian's mother, a flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol earlier this year.
Edith Kong has a collection of photographs, letters, flags and medals. She values the memories more than the medals, she said.
After graduation, Brian Kong left for the Mainland to complete his military training, including Army Ranger and Airborne schools.
He completed his duties honorably, as he had done since he was small child.
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| Edith Kong received a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol this year in honor of her late son, 1st Lt. Brian Kong. Lt. Col. Robert Takao, ROTC professor at the University of Hawai'i, held it for her during a ceremony yesterday.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Edith hadn't had to punish or scold him since he was 6.
"He was so good," she said yesterday. "Sometimes I thought he was too good. People used to say he was an old man in a little boy's body."
Edith didn't want her son to go to Vietnam. He had been accepted to law school and probably could have gotten a deferment.
The family had contacts, she said, and maybe she could have pulled some strings to get him duty on the Mainland or in Europe. After all, he'd never intended to make a career of the military.
"He looked at me and he said, 'Mom, if I were to go to Europe, and that position I'm trained for went to someone else, some kid from some ghetto in New York, how do you think I would feel if something happened to him?'"
"So then I shut my mouth," she said.
Brian Kong returned to Hawai'i briefly in the summer of 1970. In late September of that year he celebrated his 23rd birthday with his mother at the Kahala Hilton.
Then he kissed her goodbye and got on an airplane for his chosen assignment.
On Feb. 2, 1971, 1st Lt. Brian Kong led his platoon to set up a defensive position near Phoc Vinh in South Vietnam.
In the darkness, the platoon came under attack. Kong was wounded and died shortly after being evacuated to a medical unit.
Kong had been in high spirits in the days before his death, his company commander said later. Kong had decided to go back to law school. He'd applied for and obtained a discharge.
He was to have left Vietnam the next week.
