Good post, Gimp. Now I don't want to have gone to Vietnam but I did so does that make me be a wannabe wannabe? Kim Phuc ended up being a hero of Vietnam and was sent to medical school but in spite of all that adulation she fled to Canada. Now she is a Baptist.
The concept of the Kim Phuc Foundation was inspired by Kim Phuc - an innocent victim of the Vietnam War at the age of nine. On June 8, 1972, Kim's village of Trang Bang came under attack by South Vietnamese planes, which mistakenly dropped napalm on a Buddhist pagoda in an area where the North Vietnamese were infiltrating. While running for safety with other children, Kim was severely burned by the napalm.
The famous photograph of Kim Phuc taken by the Pulitzer Prize winning AP photographer, Huyng Cong Nick Ut, is evidence of the cruelty of war toward child victims, and became a symbol of civilian suffering in the Vietnam War. Kim suffered many years of painful burn therapy, but she always longed to reach out and help other children who were victimized by war.
Her incredible strength and spirit are evident when she speaks about forgiveness and helping children. The Kim Phuc Foundation may have been inspired by her pain, but its focus is on world peace and healing.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams
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