Standout Canton High grad excited for next chapter at U.S. Naval Academy

Han Hong at Reservoir Pond holding her letter of appointment to the Naval Academy

June of 2023 will be a memorable month for Han Hong. The 18 year old graduated from Canton High School at the beginning of June, and today, June 29, she will celebrate Induction Day at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she will do her undergraduate studies.

Hong grew up in Canton, attending the Luce School and Galvin Middle School. As a child, she had a career goal in mind. “When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a pilot,” she said.

Hong loved flying in planes with her family on trips. “I just thought it was so fascinating looking out the window when we would take off.” She was also interested in studying law and medicine.

She had always assumed she would attend a non-military college like her older brother, Huy, who graduated from CHS and majored in nursing at UMass Boston. Her plans changed, however, at the end of her sophomore year when her brother’s best friend left Canton to attend the Air Force Academy.

“I had seen him at his graduation and he told me all about it, and I thought it was really cool, so I looked into it,” she said. “That’s when I discovered the Naval Academy.”

Hong applied for admission to the Naval Academy — an extremely selective institution with an acceptance rate of only 8 percent — as well as to a number of other colleges, including the University of Virginia, Tufts, Simmons, and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS). Her mother, Tu-Anh Nguyen, and father, Binh Hong, both graduated from MCPHS and are pharmacists.

Hong plans to major in economics at the Naval Academy. “I’m going to study there for four years,” she said. “Then I serve a minimum of five years [in the U.S. Navy].” During her senior year at the academy, she will go through a process of selecting a ship on which she will serve for two years. Her first choice would be to serve in a port in Japan. After that she will be assigned to another ship.

She is looking forward to living on a ship as well as everything that goes with it. “I think I’m also really looking forward to all the experiences that I get to go through, all the people I’m going to get to meet, and being able to experience different cultures and ideas,” she said. In addition to English, Hong studied French in school and understands Vietnamese.

She said that she was drawn to both the military experience and the Naval Academy. “What really brought me in,” she said, “were the relationships that you build there at the academy itself and all the traditions … and how close-knit the school itself is and the community and how much support the community has. I really love that.”

Hong visited Annapolis with her parents after she was accepted. The family was scheduled to return to Canton the day after the visit, but Hong loved the school so much that the family woke up early so that she could visit the campus a second time. “I really felt like I fit there and I loved being there and the vibe it gave me.”

She met other incoming students from all over New England during a recent meet and greet at the USS Constitution in Charlestown.

In addition to submitting an application, transcripts, and letters of recommendation, an applicant to a military university must be sponsored by a member of Congress. In Hong’s case, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren sponsored her request for admission. A panel of Warren’s advisors and staff interviewed Hong on the senator’s behalf.

The Naval Academy also sent a Blue and Gold Officer (BGO) to Canton to interview Hong for three hours at her home during the application process. BGOs serve as field representatives during the admissions process and help to determine if a prospective student is a good fit for the academy.

“It was a good chance to understand what I was getting into,” Hong said. “[The BGO] understood the fact that we weren’t coming from a military family and I would be the first one in the military. He did a great job explaining a lot of things for me.”

Han Hong on graduation day (Mike Tureski photo)

In an email to the Citizen, Kelly Berardi, the mother of one of Hong’s friends, characterized Hong’s acceptance to the Naval Academy as an “incredible feat” and thought she deserved to be commended for her “commitment, patriotism and focus.”

“Han is a hardworking student, but above all she is wise and giving beyond her years,” wrote Berardi. “She is often not available to hang out with friends because she assists her grandmother with grocery shopping and other things she may need. Both of Han’s parents work; therefore, Han is expected to help get her brother to where he needs to be after school. She is not your typical teenager.”

Hong’s paternal grandparents — grandmother Loan Phan and grandfather Trong Hong — live with the family. “I take my grandparents out, because they don’t drive,” Hong said. In addition to helping out with their shopping, she also drives them to medical appointments or to have lunch. At home, she helps both her grandmother and mother with the cooking. If the two older women are busy, Hong makes dinner.

She makes pasta dishes, such as fettuccini Alfredo, for her younger brother, Minh, who runs cross country and will be a freshman at CHS in the fall. “I’ll make Vietnamese dishes. Tho is a really big one — I help my mom make Tho,” she said, explaining that Tho is a hearty beef and noodle soup.

In addition to driving her grandparents to different places, Hong picked Minh up from cross country and jazz band practices. At Canton High, she served as class treasurer during both her senior and junior years and as class vice president as a sophomore. She played on the varsity soccer team for all four years and the varsity basketball team for three, and she was a captain of both sports as a senior.

In her junior year, Hong won the George Eastman Young Leaders Award, given for strong leadership qualities and high academic rigor. She was in the CHS Century Club in each of the past three years and played on a club soccer team during the winter and spring and on an AAU basketball team year round.

Hong, her parents, and her brothers left Canton on June 22 for the Washington, D.C. area, where Hong’s maternal grandmother lives, in order to let Hong start to get acclimated to her new home before Induction Day.

Induction Day, also called “I-Day,” serves as the official kick-off to Plebe Summer — a rigorous, seven-week training program required of all incoming freshmen that Hong described as being similar to boot camp. “Induction Day is when we become part of the Naval Academy,” she said. “We are no longer civilians. We are part of something bigger.”

Hong looked into her family’s military background and learned that both of her grandfathers fought in South Vietnam with U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. “They were both officers,” she said. “They inspired me even more to want to do it and to want to give back to my family. My grandfathers, because of what they did, gave me the opportunity to be better. By me going [to the Naval Academy], they were actually able to live the American dream. Going is my way of giving back for everything they’ve done for me and my family.”

“I’m grateful to have such a supportive family, friends, teammates, and mentors,” she said. “They truly made this whole experience so much easier and I wouldn’t be where I am without them.”

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Posted by Mary Ann Price on Jun 29 2023. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.