What I Learned from Kim Phuc

She is petite and radiant on stage. Her name is Kim Phuc. I am with a friend at Clowes Hall on the Butler University campus hearing this 40-ish Vietnamese woman speak about her personal journey since the Vietnam War.

Of course, I have seen Kim Phuc. We have all seen Kim Phuc in the incredible picture taken by phtographer Huyng Cong Nick Ut that later won him a Pulitzer Prize. It was taken on June 8, 1972 of a little girl running and screaming from third degree burns inflicted from a napalm attack on her village. (If you do a Google search for Kim Phuc you can pictures--that will have to work until I figure out how to post pictures on this site.) That picture has always haunted me and seems to me to be one of the defining images of the Sixties.

I thought that Kim Phuc must be dead.

But tonight (February 15, 2005) she is very much alive. What happened?

Photographer Ut took her to a specialized hospital for burn victims in Saigon. From that point until adulthood, Kim Phuc had to undergo many operations. She still has scars from these operations. She still experiences much pain and during hot weather suffers because she cannot even sweat.

Her anger and confusion about what happened to her and others in her family left scars as well. Much of what Kim Phuc had to say to the Indianapolis audience had to do with moving from deep anger and resentment to forgiveness. In fact, her very presence evokes peace and harmony. Basically, Kim Phuc has struggled mightily with the question posed by Rabbi Kushner: Why do bad things happen to good people? She is not embittered but believes that she has been strengthened by her experiences.

As I was listening to Kim Phuc share her life, I thought of another survivor of great human evil, Nelson Mandela. He came out of apartheid's jails ready to create a new world, even ready to forgive his jailors.

Now Kim Phuc is a Goodwill Ambassador for the Culture of Peace for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. She has founded a foundation that funds international programs that assist child victims of warfare in several continents (www.kimfoundation.com). A book has been writen on Kim by Denise Chong: The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph and the Vietnam War, ISBN 0140280219. If you are interested, look for it in your bookstore or library.

Kim Phuc is not analytic. She doesn't dissect the world's political situation in great detail. She tells her own narrative of what happens to children (and adult survivors) of warfare. She spins a marvelous story of human transformation.

As we were sitting in Clowes Hall, child victims in Darfur, Iraq, Palestine and other scenes of intractable warfare were still screaming. With our now-embedded journalists we don't see scenes of human horror very often to remind us what war is really about.

Yet, in a very dark world, Kim Phuc spoke about her own transformation. And I was reminded that points of light can exist in even the darkest moments.