On June 8, 1972, a South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped flaming napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. The result was an iconic picture of children, including one young naked girl (Phan Thị Kim Phúc), fleeing the napalm.
na·palm/ˈnāˌpä(l)m/ noun a highly flammable sticky jelly used in incendiary bombs and flamethrowers, consisting of gasoline thickened with special soaps.
A faded black and white photograph less than a second of life, the memory is not faded. Erupting black smoke a curtain for Phan Thị Kim Phúc, nine years old, running towards us frozen naked clothes torn off painfully. She is Napalm Girl. Bombs bursting in air. One foot on the ground, the other floating in the air, mouth wide open a scream we cannot hear her arms stretched out fluttering wishing she could fly away like the planes that dropped her pain. The burning flesh, the oozing highly flammable sticky jelly crawling down her naked body. Her pain frozen captured in a photographer’s eyes. I’m going to make you famous. Bombs bursting in air.
Napalm Girl screaming from war, and we can see, feel her pain. And no one can explain to Napalm Girl why. Bombs bursting in air.
On Second Thought 