Half a century after she was photographed nude crying on a highway escaping an American bombing at a camp known as Vietnam “Napalm girl” Kim Phuc, a 59-year-old woman today, still cries out against all wars.
That was the iconic power of it Photo taken on June 8, 1972, It is considered one of the factors that made the Vietnam War more popular and caused the US military to be defeated and left a year later.
On the 50th anniversary of that photo, Kim Phuc is in New York to join the war correspondent role with AP agency photographer Nick Ut, who took this photo. but this was not limited to that, he later accompanied her to a hospital to treat her raw wounds.
In an interview with Efe, Phuc calmly talks about his own tragedy, but bursts into tears when he thinks about the current wars and especially the wars in Ukraine: “There is no just war, every war is a mistake. Killing people, making suffering (…) My heart is when I think of those who died next to me. whining and now as this repeats… I have to say: No more war, no more death!”.
Kim Phuc’s story makes a movie: After being burned by US napalm and 17 interventions to save him, the communist regime in Vietnam took him out of college. -Where he studied medicine- turned it into a weapon of counter-political propaganda. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
On one of those propaganda trips between Moscow and Havana, Kim took advantage of a technical break in Canada in 1992 and fled; She was accompanied by her boyfriend, another Vietnamese man she had met in Cuba; Together they obtained political asylum and subsequently full citizenship. They have been married for 30 years and are already grandparents.
who several times described his reconstructed skin as “a buffalo”rough skin without pores that keeps her from sweating and still hurts her, but she’s not shy about talking about it or even showing her extensive scars, and she says she prefers to see her skin “To remind me that I have a duty, no longer as a victim, but as a survivor, a peace-loving mother, as wife and grandmother”.
who actually He spent several decades telling his story. He founded the Kim Phuc International Foundation—usually with longtime photographer Nick Ut—and his primary goal of helping children injured or orphaned in war.
“I managed to make my dreams come true”
In fact, the interview takes place on a big screen where the iconic photo of Kim escaping napalm appears enlarged.
Who accepts this He had a dream of becoming a doctor and although he didn’t graduate, “Somehow I managed to make my dreams come true.not just to heal one by one, but to tell my story and help alleviate other pain, both physical and emotional.”
The photo that infuriated him and brought him fame was long hated: “I thought: Why did they photograph me like this? A naked girl ran away, ugly, embarrassed… But now I appreciate: it was a power given to me to change my life. look at me: I never thought I would become a (unesco) ambassador of goodwill or be greeted by the pope in rome”, as recently month.
It’s surprising that Kim held no grudges – even “the pilot who released my napalm” – and was able to forgive all his enemies. He says the discovery of Christianity helped him achieve this, but states that he is very careful in making any proselytizing interpretation and it is simply his “personal experience”.
Kim does not hesitate to return to the tragedies of her life again and again, because, knowing the power of the media, she believes that it is her “duty” to tell everything, she knows the power to “tell and show what is happening and the truth.” new generations are the results of all wars”.
But no one should think that Kim is idealizing her life, so she makes one thing clear: If she had the power to go back and change the past, she’d delete that bombing scene and choose “the life of a normal girl.”