As the Vietnamese photographer took pictures of the carnage, he saw a group of children and soldiers along with a screaming naked girl running up the highway toward him. Ut wondered, Why doesn’t she have clothes? He then realized that she had been hit by napalm. “I took a lot of water and poured it on her body,” Ut told TIME in an interview in late 2013. “She was screaming, ‘Too hot! Too hot!’” With those arms spread she felt GOD on her side and was all the difference in the world in her struggle to live.
The photo quickly became a cultural shorthand for the atrocities of the Vietnam War and joined Malcolm Browne’s Burning Monk and Eddie Adams’ Saigon Execution as defining images of that brutal conflict.
After snapping the photograph, Ut took Kim Phúc and the other injured children to Barsky Hospital in Saigon, where it was determined that third-degree burns covering 30 percent of her body.were so severe that she probably would not survive.
So with the help of colleagues he got her transferred to an American facility for treatment that saved her life. After a 14-month hospital stay and 17 surgical procedures including skin transplantations, however, she was able to return home. With a number of the early operations were performed by Finnish plastic surgeon Aarne Rintala (1926–2014).
However, it was only after treatment at a renowned special clinic in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 1982, that Kim Phuc was able to properly move again. Ut continued to visit Kim Phúc until he was evacuated during the fall of Saigon.
n June 8, 1972, Ut, who did not immediately return a request for comment Friday, was outside Trang Bang, about 25 miles northwest of Saigon, when the South Vietnamese air force mistakenly dropped a load of napalm on the village. Phuc, her family, other villagers and South Vietnamese soldiers had been hiding in a temple for three days. The day of the attack, they heard planes flying overhead. One of the soldiers told the civilians to run away, that the plane was going to bomb the temple.
Audio tapes of President Richard Nixon, in conversation also with his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman in 1972, reveal that Nixon mused “I’m wondering if that was fixed” after seeing the photograph. After the release of this tape, Út commented, “Even though it has become one of the most memorable images of the twentieth century!
President Nixon once doubted the authenticity of my photograph when he saw it in the papers on 12 June 1972…. The picture for me and unquestionably for many others could not have been more real. The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam War itself. The horror of the Vietnam War recorded by me did not have to be fixed. That terrified little girl is still alive today and has become an eloquent testimony to the authenticity of that photo. That moment thirty years ago will be one Kim Phúc and I will never forget. It has ultimately changed both our lives.”
Less publicized is film shot by British television cameraman Alan Downes for the British ITN news service and his Vietnamese counterpart Le Phuc Dinh who was working for the American television network NBC, which shows the events just before and after the photograph was taken (see image below).
In the top-left frame, a man stands and appears to take photographs as a passing airplane drops bombs. A group of children, Kim Phúc among them, run away in fear. After a few seconds, she encounters the reporters dressed in military fatigues, including Christopher Wain who gave her water (top-right frame) and poured some over her burns. As she turns sideways, the severity of the burns on her arm and back can be seen (bottom-left frame).
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A crying woman runs in the opposite direction holding her badly burned child (bottom-right frame). Sections of the film shot were included in Hearts and Minds, the 1974 Academy Award-winning documentary about the Vietnam War directed by Peter Davis.
When President Richard Nixon wondered if the photo was fake, Ut commented, “The horror of the Vietnam War recorded by me did not have to be fixed.” In 1973 the Pulitzer committee agreed and awarded him its prize. That same year, America’s involvement in the war ended.
In a December 21, 2017 article for the Wall Street Journal, More than 40 years after her injury, Phuc, now married with two teenagers and living near Toronto… Kim Phúc wrote that the trauma she suffered in the napalm strike still requires treatment, “but the psychological trauma was greater, even worse than the physical pain was the emotional and spiritual pain.”
This led directly to her conversion to Christianity, which she credits with healing the psychological trauma of living over forty years being known to the world as “Napalm Girl”. “My Faith in Jesus Christ is what has enabled me to forgive those who had wronged me,” she wrote, “no matter how severe those wrongs were.”
Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is extremely powerful, however, my faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If the little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?
“Also the movie Hearts and Minds that enshrined the now-household images of the naked Vietnamese girl, made famous by Nick Út’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs, running from a napalm attack, her body a patchwork of burns, and also the infant in a woman’s arms, suffering from the same injuries, skin hanging off its body.”
Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the “hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson’s phrase in an ironic context in this anti-war documentary. https://vimeo.com/126567345
In 2004, Phúc spoke at the University of Connecticut about her life and experience, learning how to be “strong in the face of pain” and how compassion and love helped her heal.
On December 28, 2009, National Public Radio broadcast her spoken essay, “The Long Road to Forgiveness,” for the “This I Believe” series. In May 2010, Phúc was reunited by the BBC with ITN correspondent Christopher Wain, who helped to save her life.
On May 18, 2010, Phúc appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme It‘s My Story. In the programme, Phúc related how she was involved through her foundation in the efforts to secure medical treatment in Canada for Ali Abbas, who had lost both arms in a rocket attack on Baghdad during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. https://thisibelieve.org/essay
Hope for Humanity and a Better World Songs
| We Are Here – Alicia Keys | All Of Me – John Legend & Lindsey Stirling |
Looking around at this world today . . . . it’s easy to become overwhelmed with all that is happening. It’s so easy to turn a blind eye, however, we each have a responsibility to this planet and we each have the ability to make the world a better place.
Music can empower, strengthen, and inspire us. It can help us deal with difficult and distressing emotions and allow us to feel and connect at great depth. We can use it to celebrate some of our greatest moments or to motivate us to make stuff happen and get things done. Not only can we use music to get things done in our own lives, but we can also use it to get things done on a greater scale.
Music is often used solely for entertainment purposes but some artists have chosen to use their musical platforms to highlight the issues in the world, the need for action and change, and the possibility and importance of making the world a better place.
Here are songs that are not only good in quality, but also good and strong in their messages. Songs of hope for humanity, songs for a better world, and inspiration to make the world a better place.
Here are songs that are not only good in quality, but also good and strong in their messages. Songs of hope for humanity, songs for a better world, and inspiration to make the world a better place.
