Maybe you remember that disturbing photo of a little girl running down the road screaming after her body had been burned by napalm. Her name is Kim Phuc and while the world saw her as a symbol of the Vietnam War, her real story is one of faith, forgiveness, and redemption.
On April 30th 1975, helicopters hovered desperately over the US Embassy in Saigon as thousands of people scrambled to escape a city collapsing into chaos. These were the final moments of the Vietnam War. As the conflict reached its devastating climax more than 7,000 people were airlifted to safety. The Fall of Saigon marked both a military defeat and a shattered dream.
Families were torn apart as North Vietnamese forces surged into the South’s capital and their red and yellow flag was lowered for the last time. For the United States, the war left scars that divided a nation and challenged its very ideals. Nearly 60,000 Americans had perished, many more returned home with life changing injuries, haunted minds and broken spirits.
For the Vietnamese, the cost was catastrophic. 2 million of their people had been killed as entire villages were erased from the map. The weak and vulnerable paid the highest price as orphaned children were condemned to grow up in a dangerous and war-torn land.
One of the children caught up in the chaos was 9-year-old Kim Phuc. She was captured on camera in 1972 running along a concrete road with her skin burning. Deadly napalm had been dropped by warplanes that poured over Vietnam resulting in horrific physical and psychological injuries. The village where Kim lived was the latest target of a deadly cocktail of gelling agents and gasoline. It stuck to whatever or whoever it landed on as it burned.
Kim suffered third-degree burns to a third of her body and would spend the next year in hospital. After 127 skin grafts, she was discharged but her real pain had only just begun. The cameraman who captured that moment on film had no idea the image would go around the world and become a lasting and iconic symbol of the Vietnam War. It would condemn Kim to humiliating and unwanted attention as her face and her life were used for propaganda purposes by the Vietnamese government.
As the years past, she pursued her dream to study medicine, but the deep physical and emotional scars of her childhood continually held her back. In 1982, she stumbled on a Bible in a Saigon library and discovered the life and message of Jesus, someone who understood her suffering, forgave and loved unconditionally.
From that moment everything changed. This is how Kim explained what happened “My heart was full of hatred, but after I accepted Jesus, I had to forgive. It was not easy, but it set me free.” She began to speak around the world, sharing her story with honesty and grace. Telling people about her personal experiences of the war in Vietnam through a lens of forgiveness, peace and healing.
Kim Phuc went on to launch a foundation to provide support and care for children caught up in the horrors of war. Children who, like her, carried deep wounds both visible and hidden. Through her extraordinary life message, Kim extended remarkable grace toward politicians, military personnel and those directly responsible for the napalm strike on her village.
“If I could talk face to face with the pilot of that plane” she said, “I would say to him, I forgive you.” What a remarkable response from an innocent person who has suffered so much. No longer is Kim Phuc the ‘Napalm Girl’ she’s a wife, a mother, a global advocate for peace and a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.
Today she travels the world telling audiences “The scars are a part of my life, but they remind me that God has a plan in everything, and no story is beyond redemption.” Kim Phuc’s remarkable life and testimony sounds out into the world that love is greater than hate and forgiveness is more powerful than revenge.
