Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: News

Before the war, I never knew fear, says Phuc Photo: Andrew Johnson

Kim Phuc was 8 years old in 1972, when her village, Trang Bang, former South Vietnam, was hit by a napalm bomb dropped by South Vietnamese planes in an operation for the South Vietnamese and American forces during the Vietnam War.

The scene was famously captured on camera by Associate Press photographer Nick Ut, and the picture made newsstands everywhere around the world, becoming for many a testament to the horrors of war. After the bombing, Ut took Phuc to a hospital, and she underwent treatment for her wounds for about 14 months. Upon skin contact, napalm heats up to a temperature than can range from 800 to 1300 degrees Celsius.

Almost 40 years later, Phuc came to UofT to speak at "Something's Broken," a lecture on world affairs hosted by UofT's Campus for Christ.

"Before the war, I never knew fear," she states confidently. "During the war, when a soldier came pounding on our door, that's when I knew fear."

She showed footage shot on the same day as the iconic photograph: she pointed to her grandmother carrying her cousin, running beside her, cloth-like drapes falling from his body. What one could assume to be clothing hanging off is actually burnt skin. He did not survive his burns. For Phuc, overcoming the pain from her burns was what she claims to have been "the biggest challenge in my life." She still suffers occasionally from it to this day.

Later on, the Vietnamese government pulled Phuc from university to use her as a war symbol. She then obtained permission to study in Havana, Cuba, where Hanoi kept her under close surveillance. In Cuba, she met her husband, Bui Huy Tan, also Vietnamese. The couple fled the government's sight after their honeymoon in Moscow, escaping to Canada as their plane stopped for refueling in Newfoundland. Kim Phuc now lives in Ajax, ON.

As a Christian, she emphasized the role that God played in her development and how she coped with the tragedies of the Vietnam War. "At first, I struggled a lot with the idea of forgiving my enemies, of loving my enemies."

Phuc says she began to be able to cope with her pain "as soon as I stopped asking the question: 'Why me?'" and came to appreciate her life experiences, as well as the lessons she took from them.

Phuc struggled with privacy after the picture became famous, in the East and in the West, unlike what she had hoped for after her escape. "Then I learned how to control the picture," she explained. "Everything I do comes from my heart; I'm not forced to do anything."

"My talks aren't political; I want to share my story, share what happened to that little girl," asserted Phuc, "My talks are about how to cope with tragedy, how to move on and forgive."

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools