This Day in History: A Conscientious Objector Turned Hero

On this day in 1949, a future Medal of Honor recipient is born. Kenneth “Kenny” Kays was perhaps an unlikely war hero. In fact, this conscientious objector didn’t want to be in Vietnam at all.

Life for Kenny had begun normally enough. His friends would remember him as strong and athletic, yet also as a “sensitive, artistic, humorous intellectual.” Kenny could be shy, but he could also show surprising daring.

On one occasion, biographer Randy K. Mills describes, Kenny was sent home by his school principal. His hair had become too long, and he’d been instructed to get a haircut. Well, Kenny got a haircut all right: He shaved his head and returned to school—bald!

United States involvement in Vietnam troubled Kenny, as it did so many in his generation. He tried to avoid the draft, applying for an exemption as a conscientious objector. When that failed, he fled to Canada. He was lonely though, so when his father called, asking him to return, he complied.

“The elder Kays had been in contact with the army,” Mills explains, “and had worked out a compromise he desperately hoped his son would accept. He would go into the army, but as a medic, and he would not have to carry a weapon.”

Which is how Kenny came to be in Vietnam on May 7, 1970. He was serving with Company D, 1st Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, and it was only his 17th day in the country.

Suddenly, his company came under attack.

“A heavily armed force of enemy sappers and infantrymen assaulted Company D’s night defensive position,” Kenny’s Medal citation explains, “wounding and killing a number of its members.”

Kenny didn’t hesitate. The young medic leapt into action, determined to help those who were wounded near the perimeter. Unfortunately, his movements drew the enemy’s attention, and enemy fire was soon concentrated on Kenny.

One of these shots severed the lower portion of one of his legs.

How did Kenny find the strength to do what he did next? He applied a tourniquet to his leg, then kept going. Time and time again, he went to the perimeter, administering medical aid and moving wounded soldiers to places of relative safety.

His Medal citation notes that he used his body as a physical shield for at least one wounded soldier. On another occasion, he left the perimeter and moved into enemy territory, determined to retrieve one of our wounded boys.

Blood loss was making him faint, but he did not accept treatment until everyone else had been evacuated.

Kenny made it home safely, but he was never the same again.

“There were 11 out of Wayne County who didn’t make it back from Vietnam,” Kenny’s friend Mike Pottorff later said. “As far as I am concerned, Kenny Kays didn’t come back either—he died in Vietnam.”

Kenny’s life after the war was troubled. He struggled with PTSD, alcohol, and drugs.  He didn’t really want the Medal of Honor, so he refused to cut his hair, shave his beard, or even wear a uniform to his Medal ceremony. He didn’t think he was a hero, and he didn’t want to be treated like one.

Sadly, Kenny ended up taking his own life in November 1991. At the time, many of his fellow soldiers didn’t even realize he’d been awarded a Medal.  They mostly knew about his later troubles.

Now many of Kenny’s friends want to bring attention to his story. They want to make sure he is remembered for his heroism, not the hard time he later had in living with what he’d seen and done.

“If you knew the real Kenny Kays,” his friend Joe Keoughan concluded, “you knew he was a pretty remarkable human being. Not many people could pull the strength up and out of themselves like Kenny did to earn the Medal of Honor.”

Rest in peace, Sir.

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Primary Sources:

• Fairfield Honors Reluctant War hero (Evansville Courier and Press; May 6, 2007) (p. B3)

• Len Wells, Memory of War Hero Kept Alive (Evansville Courier and Press; Feb. 16, 2003) (p. A22)

• Medal of Honor citation (Kenneth Michael Kays; Vietnam)

• Medal of Honor Recipient Commits Suicide (Evansville Courier and Press; Dec. 1, 1991) (p. A4)

• Randy K. Mills, Troubled Hero: A Medal of Honor, Vietnam, and the War at Home (2006)

• Vietnam Vet’s Uncle at War over Nephew’s Bills (Herald and Review; May 3, 1993) (p. A10)