When I was about 5 years old, I remember analyzing Steel Pulse's album cover, "Earth Crisis," and feeling very uncomfortable and uncertain about the picture of the little girl running on the album cover. (Notice the little girl right above the album title?) The girl's naked body and intensely horrified expression was enough to make me wonder about what might have been going on in the photo.
Here are a few lyrics from the song Earth Crisis, pertaining to the album cover art:
The Earth is the Lord's
And the fullness thereof now
Gave man his love and they
Reward him with violence
And in these last days
Lend ears to what I say
Man in his ignorant state
Has signed and sealed his own fate...
Misguided people
They don't seem to care
They carry the symbol
of the eagle and the bear
Across the globe
Far east to far west
High tax and cutbacks for military defense...
This heart-wrenching photo was taken on June 8, 1972, in the village of Trang Bang. It is a graphic image and keenly captures the reality of the war in Vietnam. The little girl in the image is Phan Thi Kim Phuc. Phan Kim Phuc, 9 years old then, was running -- after stripping off her burning clothes -- from the napalm bomb attack on her village. Supposedly, the bombing was an accident.
The photographer, Nick Ut, won a Pulitzer Prize for this image. It was Ut who took Kim Phuc and the other children to the hospital. Kim's skin was so badly burned that she was not expected to survive. However, after 14 month in a Saigon hospital, she returned to her village to begin rebuilding her life.
The images above are of the Nick Ut, the man behind the famous photo. The photo on the left was taken in Vietnam. That day, Nick was loaded with his camera gear, field survival kit, flak jacket and steel helmet. The photo on the right is a recent image.
I spoke briefly with Nick about his experience during the moment he saw the running children. Though he was only 19 years old at that time, he vividly remembers pouring water on Kim's body to cool down the burns and then borrowing a soldier's rain coat to cover her. Nick put Kim Phuc, her older brother, Phan Thanh Tam (the boy to the far left), other family members and children into a van and drove to a Saigon hospital.
The children were screaming during the ride and Kim Phuc kept repeating, "I'm dying, I'm dying." After arriving at the hospital Nick waited until the doctors tended to her. While Kim Phuc was on the operating table, Nick left the hospital and headed to the AP offices to drop his film. He returned later to check on Kim Phuc and was relieved to know that she had survived. He ended the conversation by saying "I was so happy to save her life."
Above is a recent image of Kim Phuc viewing a photo of herself holding her son. The scars from the napalm burns are visible on her back and arm in the photo. The exhibit, "Eyewitness 1996," was held at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles in 1996.
Since then, Kim Phuc has been a bearer of the message of forgiveness, reconciliation, tolerance and peace, especially for civilian victims of war. She founded the Kim Foundation, dedicated to helping children of war surmount their traumatic experiences by providing medical and psychological help.
Kim Phuc, stands as an example of not letting situations break you and inspires
strength.
Do you remember the first time you saw the image of Kim Phuc fleeing the bomb attack? What were your thoughts?
- Alyscia
If you are interested in seeing more images (note: some of the images are extremely graphic - I suggest you click on it only if you can handle strong content), here's a link to images from The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, taken by Harrell Fletcher.
4 comments:
I too remember seeing this terrifying photo of a gilr aflame with napalm. It is impossible to forget... Years later, I read a wonderful book called "The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War" by Denise Chong. If you are interested in the story of the girl in the picture it is definitely worth picking up.
I had just started working in photojournalism in the early 1970s at 23 years old when Nick's photo was published in newspapers and magazines all over the world. It hit hard and REALLY brought home to me the tremendous power of photojournalism !
I had just started working professionally in photojournalism in the early 1970s at 23 years old when Nick's photo ran in newspapers and magazines all over the world. It really brought home to me the tremendous impact & power of photojournalism.
If memory serves me right Nick is still with the AP in California.
I just wrote a research paper on embedded journalism and photojournalism during the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and these comments were very useful in adding a more human touch to my study of the picture of Phan Thi Kim Phuc. I really found it interesting to learn about what happened to her after the picture was taken, and how Nick Ut played a part in saving her life. I just think it's so amazing that we have pictures like this from the Vietnam War and during a conflict now, during this generation's time, we don't see anything truthful from the pictures of the Iraq War. I don't understand how the standards for truth have dropped so drastically in 30 years.
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