This article is a little over a year old and as much as I follow the news, I don't know how I missed it. I never knew that the identity of the young girl in the most iconic, and Pulitzer prize winning, photo to come out of the 70s was ever identified. I didn't know that she survived and was still living. Maybe I did and just forgot,,,
It only took a second for Associated Press photographer Huynh Cong Ut to snap the iconic black-and-white image 40 years ago.
It communicated the horrors of the Vietnam War in a way words could never describe, helping to end one of the most divisive wars in American history.
But beneath the photo lies a lesser-known story. It's the tale of a dying child brought together by chance with a young photographer.
A moment captured in the chaos of war that would serve as both her savior and her curse on a journey to understand life's plan for her.
'I really wanted to escape from that little girl,' says Kim Phuc, now 49. 'But it seems to me that the picture didn't let me go.'
It was June 8, 1972, when Phuc heard the soldier's scream: 'We have to run out of this place! They will bomb here, and we will be dead!'
Seconds later, she saw the tails of yellow and purple smoke bombs curling around the Cao Dai temple where her family had sheltered for three days, as north and south Vietnamese forces fought for control of their village.
The little girl heard a roar overhead and twisted her neck to look up. As the South Vietnamese Skyraider plane grew fatter and louder, it swooped down toward her, dropping canisters like tumbling eggs flipping end over end.
'Ba-boom! Ba-boom!'
'Napalm girl' photo from Vietnam War turns 40 | Mail Online
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