It may be the most iconic photograph from the entire Vietnam War: a naked 9-year-old girl, her body burned by napalm, running in agony for her life down the lane of a Vietnamese village.
Taken on June 8, 1972, the photo has come to be known as “The Terror of War,” and colloquially as “Napalm Girl.”
Hideously, the child had been hit by “friendly fire” from the South Vietnamese Air Force. A strike intended for nearby North Vietnamese troops mistakenly hit Trảng Bàng village, where Kim and her family, in fear of the Viet Cong, had been hiding out for three days in a local temple.
The girl survived. And the girl has a name: Kim Phuc Phan Thi.
She tells her story in “Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace” (Tyndale Momentum, $16.99).
Born April 6, 1963, Kim Phuc and her several siblings enjoyed an idyllic childhood. Her mother ran a highly popular soup restaurant, and the family lived in a comfortable two-acre compound surrounded by flowers, birds, and fruit trees.
But as the war crept closer, danger loomed. Viet Cong soldiers roamed the village at night, digging tunnels, demanding food and supplies.
Fearful of invading troops, the family had taken refuge, along with about 30 other villagers, in their local Caodai temple. On the morning of June 8, 1972, bombs began to rain down. The order came from South Vietnamese soldiers to get out of the temple and run. “Seconds later I caught sight of an airplane closing in on me … these bombs all but floated down. There was something sinister in those cans.”
The sinister something was napalm, a highly flammable, sticky, petroleum-based jelly used in flamethrowers and other incendiary bombs to create intense fires that cause extreme burns, asphyxiation, and immense heat.
Nick Ut, the AP photographer credited with taking the photo, told NBC News in 2017: “I looked in my camera’s viewfinder [and] I saw the girl running from black smoke. I say, ‘Why isn’t she wearing clothes?’ And I run and take a lot of pictures of her.”
(A 2025 documentary film, “The Stringer,” alleges that another photographer took the photo. AP denies the claims.)
Kim Phuc had been severely burned over more than 30% of her body. A well-meaning soldier tried to douse the flames with water, but napalm reacts with water in such a way that the flames were reignited.
Having taken his photographs, Ut then transported Kim Phuc and other children wounded in the attack to a hospital in Saigon.
“Uncle Ut,” as Kim came to call him later, became a lifelong friend.
What followed were decades of untold suffering, pain, frustrated plans, bureaucratic red tape, and family conflict. Kim Phuc studied pharmacology in Cuba, married a loving man from North Vietnam named Bui Huy Toan, defected to Canada, and after encountering the New Testament, gave her life to Jesus — at which point her mother disowned her.
Today, she’s a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She’s given countless talks and interviews. She runs Kim Phúc Foundation International, dedicated to providing medical and psychological assistance to child victims of war. Her parents and siblings have all converted to Christianity.
Though doctors at first told her the burns would make her infertile, she’s also the mother of two sons. There’s a second photograph of her with her first baby, Thomas, a side view of her bare back, scarred over every inch, juxtaposed with the silky purity of her infant’s skin. It’s a beautiful shot, taken in 1994, a resolution of sorts. Her face is pensive, turned inward with love.
But to get to that place of peace, and to stay there, day after day, is a hero’s journey. The most moving pages in the book are those describing the pitched, agonizing, ongoing battle to forgive the people and institutions that had harmed her. Every step of the way, she has been guided by Christ.
The scars remain, as does the pain. Of state-of-the-art laser treatments she was undergoing in Miami while writing the book, she wrote, “Even the best medications can only cloak 30 percent of the pain. I feel the other 70 percent. It is as if I am placed on a barbecue grate and grilled to within inches of my life.”
You can witness Kim’s gentleness of heart, class, and poise on any number of YouTube videos. One of the best, from the Canadian Bible Society, is called “How Did the ‘Napalm Girl’ Find Hope in Scripture?”
“The fact is,” she writes, “we all are children of war, whether we have seen a single bomb fall from the sky. A battle is being waged inside of us, and the spoils are our souls. God was showing me that every person knows on some level what it is to suffer and strive, what it is to wear scars they cannot erase. ‘Tell them I will give them strength to bear their pain,’ the Lord has encouraged me daily. I had to say goodbye to my dream of becoming a medical doctor, but perhaps healing the soul is as important as healing the body. I consider it noble work.”
