Kim Phúc will always have the scars, but the woman whose suffering as a girl after the napalm bombing of her village became an iconic image of the Vietnam War has found peace and forgiveness.
Phúc, known as the “napalm girl” from Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph that captured her naked and in agony, was on the UW-Madison campus with him Saturday to share her story of a past of hate and bitterness replaced by a life of happiness and forgiveness.
“I believe peace, love and forgiveness will always be more powerful than bombs,” Phúc said.
The ability to forgive those involved in the bombing — and the Vietnamese government which after the war used her as a “war symbol for the state” — came when she found Christianity, Phúc said.