June 8, 1972: The Kim Phúc Photo

Note: I didn't want to use the main photo

as my "headline," for reasons of propriety.

June 8, 1972: A horrifying photograph shows that the Vietnam War is still every bit as bad as the antiwar activists were saying it was.

Phan Thị Kim Phúc (and that's pronounced "fook," not like the English profanity) was born on April 6, 1963 in Trảng Bàng, South Vietnam. The war that tore her country apart got noticeably worse that year, and didn't stop getting worse.

In 1972, she turned 9, and the North Vietnamese Army had attacked and occupied Trảng Bàng. She was fleeing the town with her family and several South Vietnamese soldiers when a South Vietnamese pilot, mistakenly thinking the group was the enemy, dropped napalm on them. It may not have been an American pilot, but it was American weaponry, and it was dropped by an American ally.

Her clothes caught fire, and she tore them off, which saved her life. Two of her cousins died. Film footage of the escape attempt was taken, but it is a photograph that everyone remembers. It was taken by New York Times photographer Nick Ut, from the front, and a naked Kim Phúc is screaming. She remembered what she screamed: "Too hot! Too hot!"

It's not supposed to make you feel comfortable. It's supposed to remind you that

General William Tecumseh Sherman was right: "War is all hell."

Immediately after taking the picture, Ut took the injured children to a hospital in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon. Due to the extent of her burns, it was initially believed she would not survive. She spent 14 months in hospitals, and underwent 17 skin graft surgeries. A full decade later, she had a surgery at a specialized clinic in West Germany that gave her full movement again.

In spite of her unwilling nudity, The New York Times put the photo on its next day's front page. The picture horrified Americans -- some because of the brutality that was captured, some because it was seen as undermining the U.S. war effort.

President Richard Nixon was caught on one of his eventually-infamous Oval Office audiotapes, telling his White House Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, "I'm wondering if that was fixed." He showed no sympathy for a child who had been badly harmed by her own people, America's alleged ally that he was telling the country that he was trying to protect.

At the time, anybody saying that the war would be over in less than 8 months would have been told, "You're delusional. Look at that photo!" As it turned out, though, Richard Nixon could have ended the war anytime he wanted to. But he needed to get re-elected. He ended it on January 23, 1973, 3 days after his 2nd Inauguration, and 1 day after his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, the man most blamed for the U.S. role in the war, died.

Still, South Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975. In 1986, Kim Phúc moved -- to another Communist country, Cuba, where she studied medicine. She got married in 1992, at age 29, and the couple had their honeymoon in Moscow, a few months after the fall of the Soviet Union. On the flight back to Cuba, the plane stopped to refuel in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. There, the couple asked the Canadian government for political asylum, and it was granted.

Now a grandmother, Kim Phúc lives a life far beyond the "Napalm Girl" label. She became a Canadian citizen in 1997, and works to help child victims of war via the Kim Foundation International. She and Nick Ut, who took the picture, remain close friends. Ut, who was born in Vietnam and now lives in the U.S., appropriately named his photograph "The Terror of War."

Nick and Kim, looking at his original negatives

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June 8, 1972 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Texas Rangers, 6-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. This was the Rangers' 1st season in Texas, after 11 years as an expansion team, known as "the new Washington Senators." Pete Broberg outpitched Mel Stottlemyre.

* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 5-3 at Shea Stadium. Pete Rose went 2-for-5. Johnny Bench went 0-for-3, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly. Pedro Borbón was the winning pitcher, in relief of Ross Grimsley. The losing pitcher was Tom Seaver. Willie Mays, newly brought back to New York by the Mets, went 2-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Montreal Expos, 3-2 at Jarry Park in Montreal. Hank Aaron did not play.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Astros, 7-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Bill Champion went 6 innings for the win. This was 1 of 30 games that the Phillies would win all season without Steve Carlton as the starting pitcher. With him starting, they won 29.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals, 4-3 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Diego Padres, 11-2 at San Diego Stadium. Willie Stargell went 1-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Roberto Clemente was injured, and did not play.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-4 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Lou Brock went 1-for-5.

And most of the American League were not scheduled: The Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, the California Angels, the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Detroit Tigers, the Minnesota Twins and the Oakland Athletics.