Contributed by Steve Goldberg
Left: Nick Ut's famous image of Kim Phuc fleeing the napalm attack on her village. Right: Kim Phuc Today: Inspirational Social Activist
One of the most unforgettable and haunting images of the Vietnam War is depicted in the upper left hand photo above.
Kim Phuc is the girl in one of the photos recently reunited with Christopher Wain, the ITN correspondent who took the photo and helped save her life 38 years ago.
When Chris last saw Kim, she was lying on a hospital bed with third-degree burns to more than half of her body, after a South Vietnamese napalm bomb attack.
It was 8 June 1972 and Chris and his crew had been in Vietnam for seven weeks, covering the conflict for ITN.
He remembers the day clearly. As Kim ran down the road, her arms outstretched and screaming for help, he took what is now seen as one of the most memorable images of the Vietnam War.
She was still running when Chris stopped her and poured water over her. She was then taken to the nearest hospital, the British-run Saigon First Children’s Hospital. Shortly afterwards, his photograph and the film footage appeared all over the Western media.
Kim stayed in hospital for 14 months and went through 17 operations, remaining in constant pain to this day.
Her image became a lasting memory for a generation – but the little girl herself disappeared from public view.
Powerful gift
In 1995 after studying medicine at Havana University, she settled down for a quiet with her husband and two children. A journalist tracked her down and took a photo that was splashed across the front page of the Toronto Sun.
“I wanted to escape the picture because the more famous it got, the more it cost me my private life. It seemed to me that my picture would not let me go,” she says. Rather than lamenting her lack of privacy she used her notoriety to help promote peace. “I realized that now that I have freedom and am in a free country, I can take control of that picture,” she says.
This idea led her to establish the Kim Phuc Foundation, which provides medical and psychological assistance to child victims of war.
Her mission: ”To help heal the wounds suffered by innocent children and to restore hope and happiness to their lives, by providing much needed medical and psychological assistance.”
| Go to http://www.kimfoundation.com to learn more about Kim’s work and how you can support her inspirational Upside cause. |
