Kim Phuc Phan Ti was no ordinary girl. She is the girl in the picture taken by the Associated Press photographer, Nick Ut, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. Only, she was not a smiling photo model.The picture captured the moment when the nine year old Kim pulled off her burning clothes from her badly wounded body and screamed, “Too hot! Too hot!”

Being born in 1963 in the village of Trang Bang, 30 miles north of Saigon, Kim was raised during the war time. In June 1972, her hamlet was occupied by the National Liberation Front (NLF) forces—which U.S. soldiers came to refer to as Viet Cong; from the Vietnamese term for Vietnamese Communist .

On June 8, 1972, the South Vietnamese Army’s 25th Division swept through the village. Photographer Nick Ut, stood across the road with the soldiers and other reporters at that time, recalled seeing hundreds of refugees fled from Trang Bang. The village fell silent at noon. Most people believed that the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies had already withdrawn—not even communist snipers seemed to be left behind. The field commander of the troops outside the village then asked for additional air support from South Vietnam Airforce units based at Bien Hoa, some 15 miles away. At 2 PM a soldier finally threw smoke grenade to mark the target area for the approaching Skyraiders.

The two Skyraider aircraft of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) started the heavy bombings at the edge of the village, near the Cai Dai pagoda. Explosive bombs were dropped; followed by incendiary bombs—large containers with a mix of explosives, white phosphorus and the black oily napalm; and ended with heavy machinegun fire during closing strafing runs. The mission was accomplished, but it turned out to be a tragedy as soon as the terrified and wounded villagers came running from the village.

“When we (the reporters) moved closer to the village we saw the first people running. I thought ‘Oh my God’ when I suddenly saw a woman with her left leg badly burned by napalm. Then came a woman carrying a baby, who died, then another woman carrying a small child with it’s skin coming off. When I took a picture of them I heard a child screaming and saw that young girl who had pulled off all her burning clothes. She yelled to her brother on her left,” said Nick Ut during an interview.

The girl was Kim Phuc. With third-degree burns over half of her body, she was not expected to survive. But Nick Ut drove her to a hospital and urged the doctors to treat her. It took years of treatment and seventeen operations to bring her worth living life back to her. “I saw the bombs. I saw the fire. There was a terrible heat. I tore off my burning clothes. But the burning didn’t stop. People poured water over me from their canteens. Then I fainted,” she testified.

Her story received the world’s sympathy; but ten years after, her fame turned to be a nightmare when she was yanked out of a university by the Vietnamese government and kept as “national symbol of war”. School was banned; trips abroad were almost impossible as she received daily supervisions on her schedule. There were always foreign journalists who would track her down and expose her. Her liberty had been taken. Only in 1986 she was allowed to resume her studies in Cuba—under special supervision; where she met her husband and they decided to marry. Vietnamese officials gave them permission to go to Moscow for their honeymoon, but during an airplane refueling in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, they got off the plane and asked for political asylum there.

Today Kim Phuc is living a different life in Canada with her husband and two children; but she remains the same woman. Her rough times are now part of history, yet they had never made her bitter. She continues to dedicate her life in promoting peace with her Kim Foundation International; a foundation to help children victims of war by providing medical and psychological help to get through their traumatic experiences. For her activities, she was appointed as the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador on November 10, 1994.

“Pain never disappears. You just learn how to deal with it,” she said during a December 2003 presentation at a church in the United States. Everyone may have their own way of dealing with pain, but Kim Phuc has chosen forgiveness, reconciliation and tolerance, “Even if I could talk face to face with the pilot who dropped the bombs, I would tell him we cannot change history but we should try to do good things for the present and for the future to promote peace”.

This has been originally posted here on September 27, 2005