'Napalm girl' was haunted by the image for years

by Colin Deppen | cdeppen@pennlive.com  Email the author | Follow on Twitter 

At just nine-years-old, Kim Phuc became one of the most enduring symbols of the War in Vietnam. A photo of her running naked and crying from the scene of an allied napalm attack had stunned a global audience and brought home the human toll of war in one blistering black-and-white frame.   

Speaking to reporters before a lecture at Elizabethtown College on Wednesday, Phuc said the image haunted her for decades, as she struggled to come to terms with its shadow and legacy, the embarrassment and pain it conjured.    

"The more famous the picture became, the worse it was for my private life ... I became another kind of victim in a way, and I had no choice," she said.  

'Napalm Girl' Is Running No MoreKim Phuc, the girl in the iconic Vietnam War photo, describes her struggle with the legacy of that image in a visit to Elizabethtown College on Wednesday, April 13, 2016.

The photo, taken by Associated Press war correspondent Nick Ut, would win him a Pulitzer and eventually catapult Phuc into her current roles as activist and advocate for children of war, soldiers and victims of napalm.   

But it would be a long road.

After the attack, she spent months in the hospital with massive burns across her body. She is now undergoing laser treatments to ease her pain and scarring and has reached treatment number 4 of 7.

In the years after its release, the photo and Phuc would be used as "war symbols" and propaganda tools by the Vietnamese government. She would later defect to Canada while on a honeymoon flight from Moscow, getting off with her husband when the plane stopped in Newfoundland for fuel. That was 24 years ago. Phuc is now married with children and living in Toronto.

But the photo and "napalm girl" tag proved unshakable.   

It wasn't until later that Phuc learned to embrace the photo and harness its power. 

"I realized if I couldn't escape it, I would go back to that picture and work with it for good," she said.  

In that evening's Ware Lecture on Peacemaking, the college's 10^th annual, Phuc told a crowd of college students and adults how she learned to forgive as a convert to Christianity, and how she continues work to redefine the image that defined her.  

"When you see the little girl running up the road [in that picture] and you see her crying out, try not to see her as crying out in pain and fear. Try not to see her as a symbol of war. Try to see her as a symbol for peace." 

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