Residing in Cuba, a Vietnamese woman got married and, upon returning from her honeymoon in Russia, took advantage of her flight stopover in Canada to escape and stay in America. The story, by itself, is incredible. But it is even more so, considering that its protagonist is PhanThi Kim Phuc, the central figure in the historic photograph “The Napalm Girl“.
More than half a century after the morning when her people suffered the horrors of the Vietnam War, the woman traveled the world as a peace activist and with a call for hope. In her last days, her tour included Costa Rica and this is part of the message she shared.
The day that made world history
It was a Thursday, June 8th, 1972, to be more accurate, when the village of Trang Bang hosted one of the most critical moments of the Vietnam War. The day’s attacks included napalm, a gelatinous fuel that by the way it burns deepens the effects of fire on nature, buildings, and the skin of attack victims.
Among those affected, precisely, was Kim Phuc, who was 9 years old at the time. She herself received the fire and her clothes disintegrated. While running in the middle of the road, photographer Nick Ut captured the image, which in a few days became a symbol of the violence of the war that was shaking the world at the time.
Ut, who was also visiting Costa Rica, narrated how after taking the photograph he himself took the girl in his car to a hospital. There it was necessary to discuss so that they received it.
The history of photography did not end there. In fact, it went around the world, won a Pulitzer Prize and, even now, it remains a symbol. But what was just beginning was a long fight for the victim, who ended up left for dead.
Rescued from the morgue in Vietnam
Despite the harshness of her story, at that time the girl was one more victim of the thousands that the War in Vietnam left every day. In the midst of few aid conditions, she ended up evicted and sent to the morgue.
There, she tells of her, she was rescued by her father days later after a doctor friend allowed him to look for her at the hospital. She began a 14-month initial recovery process; followed by a series of 17 surgeries that did not end until 1994, with a final intervention in Germany. “My recovery was long and very difficult. When I left the hospital, I had to do very painful exercises every day, due to the scars on my back and left arm”, the woman now recounts.
She describes it as a “miracle” that she had no damage to her face and hands, as well as being able to run after the attack. “It is amazing to me how my feet did not burn”, she said.
Her dream of being a doctor also had its price
The burns forced Kim Phuc to spend long years among doctors. That situation ended up inspiring her to become one of them to give back what they did for her.
She entered the Vietnamese university in the 1980s and, at that time, she remembers how she had to share her studies with the use that the country’s regime wanted to make of her. In the afternoons, she reminisces about her, they used her for interviews and propaganda against the war that she had already ended.
By 1986, she had the opportunity to continue studying medicine in Cuba, which also ended up overshadowed by political overtones. “Cuba is communist and it was easier for them to control me”, she reproaches.
During her time on the island, she gained 2 things: learning Spanish and love. She married Tohan in Havana, in 1992, and they undertook their honeymoon trip to Moscow, the capital of the recently extinct Soviet Union. The return flight had a layover of just 1 hour in Canada and a new historic moment arrived for Kim Phuc. The couple used the moment to desert the communist regimes in which they had always lived and start, once again, her life in another country.
Various releases after Vietnam
Settling away from Vietnam and Cuba meant leaving the medicine project, which Kim Phuc says he was compensated for. “When I defected to Canada, I had to leave all my papers and studies behind. I traded my chance to graduate for a chance to live in freedom”, she recalls. “I was content to live without a college degree as long as I could live my dream of helping others”,she adds.
And along with physical and political freedom, she adds that there was also a spiritual process to separate from hatred. “I learned that to be free I had to learn to forgive. Those who know me, also know that I love to laugh, I do not keep hatred or bitterness in my heart”, she emphasizes. “The lesson is how to forgive my enemies and really arm them”,she continues.
How do you want to be remembered?
Though he had reproached the photo for years, Kim Phuc now describes it as “an accident in history”. Although she could have died from the bombs, which reached 1,200 °C, her history -and partly that of humanity- changed thanks to that image.
“The world was shocked, they saw an innocent girl caught up in a violent war”,she says. “It was a powerful image that helped change the course of the war”,she continues. After 51 years, the protagonist asks to be seen as everything she became: “As a mother, as a grandmother, and as a survivor crying out for peace”.
