- Foreword
In 1972, a photo titled "Girl in Fire" was published on the front page of the New York Times, and quickly triggered a fierce response in the international community.
In the photo, a group of ragged children are running in terror on the road, followed by several American soldiers with guns. The most eye-catching thing is the naked little girl in the middle of the photo, crying for help.
At that time, the little girl was unfortunately hit by napalm dropped from the sky by the US military, and her body quickly began to burn with raging fire. In order to survive, she could only desperately tear off the clothes that had stuck to her body. Regardless of the burnt skin and naked body, she opened her arms and ran out of the explosion area heartbreakingly, crying for her life.
This scene happened to be seen by Associated Press Asian war photographer Huang Gongwu. He quickly pressed the shutter and recorded this heart-wrenching scene with the camera in his hand.
Now, even though a full fifty years have passed since this photo was taken, whenever I look back, the tragic situation of the girl in the photo is still shocking and painful.
So, did this little Vietnamese girl who was ignited by petrol bombs 50 years ago and "ran away naked" in panic on the battlefield survive in the end?
- Background of the Times
In 1955, the United States provoked a confrontation between South Vietnam and North Vietnam . It openly supported the South Vietnamese government headed by Ngo Dinh Diem , and opposed the North Vietnam headed by Ho Chi Minh . The Vietnam War began Start.
But to the surprise of the United States, this war did not go as smoothly as they imagined. Although the South Vietnamese government has gradually occupied large areas of territory in the country, it has never been able to completely break through the North Vietnamese people who defended their defense lines.
This forces the United States to go into battle personally.
So in 1961, the Kennedy administration of the United States directly sent troops into Vietnam and officially intervened in the Vietnam War.
At that time, due to the Soviet Union's support for North Vietnam, many Asian countries also joined the war, and North Vietnam gradually counterattacked the United States. The sudden reversal of the war situation shocked the United States, which was already destined to win.
Seeing that the United States has been mired in the Vietnam War for several years, domestic anti-war voices are getting louder and louder. In this context, US President Nixon decided to continue to step up efforts to pull out of the "quagmire" of Vietnam as soon as possible.
In order to further increase the intensity of the attack, starting on May 8, 1972, the United States quietly launched a large-scale bombing code-named "Operation Linebacker." In just a few months, the US military launched more than 40,000 air strikes against North Vietnam, even dumping hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives. And among them, many are extremely lethal napalm bombs.
Napalm is different from ordinary ammunition. It is a chemical bomb that uses gasoline and a binder mixed in a certain ratio so that the mixture can burn at a specified speed and adhere to objects. When a bomb like
explodes, its burning temperature can reach as high as 1200-1500℃.
To understand it simply, this kind of bomb will stick to the target like "dog skin plaster" after it explodes, and the more it is slapped, the bigger the fire will be. Once the napalm bomb attaches to the human body, the consequences can be said to be fatal. .
As early as the Korean battlefield, Americans had already invented and used this napalm bomb. Comrade Mao Anying died because of the napalm bomb dropped by the Americans. Almost instantly, the scene turned into a sea of fire, and by the time the fire was extinguished, Comrade Mao Anying's body had been burned beyond recognition.
The behavior of the United States has always been reckless and inhumane.
When the United States ambitiously wanted to take Vietnam into its hands again through this destructive method and obtain the fruits of victory in its struggle for hegemony with the Soviet Union, thousands of Vietnamese people were displaced and tortured on the devastated land. .
Among them are the 9-year-old girl Pan Jinfu in the photo, and four other children running wildly in the flames of war.
- Life hangs on a thread
On June 8, 1972, Pan Jinfu and his family were fleeing to a safe area with other refugees. When passing a temple in Chang Ban Village on the outskirts of Saigon, the exhausted people asked to take a short rest here. They believe that the temple is a sacred place, and war will not easily burn it here.
But who knew that not long after the group hid in the temple, they heard the circling sound of fighter jets outside. Before anyone could react, the plane launched an attack on the ground, and multiple napalm bombs fell from the sky. Many people were killed directly in the temple, including Pan Jinfu's aunt and two cousins.
When Xiao Jinfu heard the sound of bombing, she quickly ran away, but at some point, her clothes were ignited by the falling petrol bombs, and her body and arms instantly burst into flames.
She was so frightened that she cried for help, but everyone was running away at this time and no one could care about her.
She instinctively slapped the flames on her body, but who knew, the fire would get bigger and bigger.
The panicked little Jinfu didn't know how to put out the fire on her body. In desperation, she could only run forward with her friends covered in flames. Not long after running, little Jinfu felt that her left arm was burned to the point of losing consciousness, and her back was in excruciating pain, so she quickly tore the burning clothes on her body, tearing them apart as she ran.
At this moment, she no longer cared about any shame, she just wanted to survive.
In her eyes, surviving is more important than anything else.
Little Jinfu took off his clothes while running wildly. Just like in the photo, he was naked and running on the road with four other children. At that time, the skin of little Jinfu's left arm had begun to fall off, and his back was also a patch of white. Bone adhesions could even be seen in some parts, which was too horrible to look at.
Even so, she still didn't stop running, and kept uttering heart-piercing cries for help, "I'm so hot" and "help me"...
But along the way, she couldn't stop running. No one came to their aid.
It may have been commonplace for a long time. Faced with little Jin Phuc's heartbreaking cry for help, the American and Vietnamese soldiers on the road did not respond at all. They watched everything that happened numbly. The lives of these Vietnamese children seemed less valuable than the guns in their hands in front of these cold-blooded soldiers.
This scene happened to be seen by Asian war photographer Huang Gongwu of the Associated Press. He habitually pressed the shutter and recorded this heart-wrenching scene with the camera in his hand.
Immediately, Huang Gongwu put down the camera, and with the help of fellow British journalist Christopher , he put out the fire on little Jinfu's body with water and saved the poor little girl. After
put out the fire on Pan Jinfu's body, in order to leave evidence, Huang Gongwu used a camera to record the burns suffered by on Xiao Jinfu's body. Then he put his own clothes on her, stopped a jeep, and took Pan Jinfu and several other children to the Pakistani Hospital in Saigon.
On the way to the hospital, little Jinfu, who was almost unconscious, kept mumbling: "It hurts...I hurt...help me...help me quickly."
Huang Gongwu felt very distressed, but there was nothing he could do. He could only comfort little Jinfu while urging the driver to speed up.
After arriving at the hospital, the doctor was shocked when he saw little Jinfu. More than half of the skin on her body was burned. The flesh on her chin and chest were stuck together. The flesh on the left and right sides of her arms were almost completely burned through. You can see the bones inside.
When the doctor saw this, he could only shake his head, sighed and said: "This child will most likely not survive", and refused to treat her. But Huang Gongwu refused to give up. He repeatedly begged the doctor to save the poor child and said he would give it a try no matter what the outcome was.Huang Gongwu's words made the doctor soften his heart and agreed to try to treat Xiao Jinfu.
Fortunately, after 14 months of treatment and 17 skin graft surgeries, little Jinfu finally survived.
At this time, little Jinfu, who was already beyond recognition and completely bruised, did not seem to feel that his survival was a blessing. He even felt that he should not survive and might as well die in the bombing like his two cousins. happy.
The experience of this day has also become an eternal shadow in her heart.
- Nightmare of Life
Once this photo taken by Huang Gongwu was exposed, it quickly caused a huge sensation internationally and was published on the front page of the New York Times in the United States. This little girl, who suffered multiple burns on her body and desperately asked for help during the war, has been in the public eye since then.
If it hadn't been for this terrible Vietnam War, Pan Jinfu might be sitting in a spacious and bright classroom studying, or playing with her friends, enjoying her carefree childhood. But now she is lying on the hospital bed, enduring huge pain and undergoing skin grafting again and again.
photos not only awaken the conscience, but also awaken the yearning for peace in people's hearts. Through this photo, everyone can truly see the suffering caused by the war and the brutality of the US military, which has set off a new round of global anti-war upsurge.
In order to quell anti-war sentiment at home and abroad, the United States was forced to withdraw its troops from Vietnam early. After U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, the South Vietnamese regime was left alone and soon fell and surrendered. In 1976, the North Vietnamese government unified the country and established what is now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Some people commented that it was the girl in the photo who ended the war six months early.
Although the war is over, the shadow left by the war on little Jinfu still lingers for a long time...
After the Vietnam War, little Jinfu returned to her hometown with her terrible scars.
She was only nine years old at this time. Before the explosion, little Jinfu and all the little girls who loved beauty generally liked to wear skirts. But after the burn, facing those ugly scars on her body, she had to take off her favorite dress. Even in summer, she wore long-sleeved clothes to cover the scars on her body.
What makes Pan Jinfu even more intolerable is the way friends and strangers point at her and keep away from her when they see the scars on her body. She began to have low self-esteem, become withdrawn, and became unwilling to see others.
Not long after, someone showed the photo taken by Huang Gongwu to Xiao Jinfu. When she first saw the photo, she couldn't even believe that the little girl in the photo was actually herself. Xiao Jinfu didn't understand why Huang Gongwu took a photo of herself without clothes, and the widespread circulation of this photo made her both painful and ashamed.
At this time, Pan Jinfu may not have realized that this photo was quietly changing the rest of her life.
At this time, Xiao Jinfu has become the focus of many "anti-US imperialism" countries. At that time, a Dutch reporter took the lead in approaching the Vietnamese government and offered to interview the little girl in the photo.
This matter also attracted the attention of the Vietnamese government. They realized that the scars on Pan Jinfu's body were the most powerful evidence reflecting the crimes of the US military.
Therefore, the Vietnamese government authorities found Pan Jinfu and asked her to suspend her studies and accept interviews from reporters from all over the world according to the manuscripts given by the government. And promised to give her good medical care and education in return.
In the next ten years, the young Jin Fu turned into a living "anti-American teaching material", constantly participating in various propaganda and accepting various interviews to expose the evil deeds of "US imperialism".
As he grew older, Pan Jinfu began to feel tired of such a life.In her eyes, she is like a puppet on strings, saying the same words over and over again every day, and appearing in reports from different countries over and over again.
And compared with physical fatigue, Pan Jinfu's psychological trauma is more difficult to heal. Every time she gave an interview, she had to show the scars in her heart, especially when the society was publicizing the photo of her running naked for her life. This was undoubtedly a huge psychological challenge for a young girl.
Pan Jinfu began to resist such a life. She wanted to escape from that photo, she wanted to get rid of this "nightmare".
- reborn from the ashes
Finally one day, the opportunity came. After graduating from
university, Pan Jinfu finally got an opportunity to study abroad in
, Cuba. While studying abroad, Pan Jinfu met a young Vietnamese who was also studying in Cuba. The two soon fell in love and held a wedding in Cuba in 1992.
Pan Jinfu really didn’t want to return to the sad place in Vietnam, so after discussing with her husband, the two decided to settle in Canada, and the Canadian government also agreed to their immigration request. From then on, Pan Jinfu and her husband stayed in Toronto, Canada, and gave birth to two lovely sons, making the family of four happy.
However, the peaceful life did not last long. A news report three years later once again pushed Pan Jinfu to the forefront.
In 1995, photographer McNally somehow learned the news that Pan Jinfu had settled in Toronto, Canada. He found Pan Jinfu, hoping to take a set of comparison photos of her today.
With the encouragement of her husband and after a fierce ideological struggle, Pan Jinfu nodded in agreement.
A few days later, a photo of "a scarred woman holding a cute baby" appeared on the front page of the "Toronto Sun". This photo was in sharp contrast to the previous photo of a little girl running away naked.
After this photo was published, the little girl once again returned to the public eye.
This time, facing the media's camera, Pan Jinfu no longer resisted, but spoke calmly and bravely, and showed his scars in front of everyone again. The reason why
chose to stand up again is because "she has been caught in the rain herself, so she also wants to hold an umbrella for others."
Pan Jinfu knows that he is one of the few who has experienced, witnessed and experienced that period of history. Therefore, she has an obligation and responsibility to stand up and prevent more children from being harmed.
In 1997, Pan Jinfu, who immigrated to the United States, served as a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO and established a Pan Jinfu Foundation in the United States to provide assistance to children who were harmed by war and terrorist activities.
- bury the hatchet
In November 1966, on Veterans Day in the United States, a grand rally was held in Washington, and Pan Jinfu was invited to give a speech at the meeting. What Pan Jinfu never dreamed of was that while conducting "anti-war" propaganda, she unexpectedly met the pilot who dropped the incendiary bomb.
On this day, thousands of American veterans who participated in the Vietnam War gathered in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the United States. Facing these veterans who had hurt her and her family, Pan Jinfu on the stage said calmly:
"I am the little girl who ran in the fire. The purpose of my coming today is not to blame or complain, nor to complain. It’s not about what is right or wrong. I just hope you can remember the consequences of the war. Although we can’t change history, we can try to do some good things for the future.”
As soon as Pan Jinfu’s speech ended, a crowd rushed out of the audience. A man walked straight up to Pan Jinfu and said with tears streaming down his face: "I'm sorry, I was the one who ordered the dropping of incendiary bombs on your village during the Vietnam War."
The man who spoke is named John Plummer. He is now a pastor. More than 20 years ago, he was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.
John Plummer recalled that he saw the photo taken by Huang Gongwu After that photo, he felt deeply remorseful and guilty. So after returning to the United States, he resigned as an Air Force pilot and became a pastor, hoping to cleanse himself of his sins in the church for the rest of his life. Now after seeing Pan Jinfu in person, he felt that he could no longer remain silent, so he rushed to the stage and confessed his mistakes to Pan Jinfu.
At this time, Pan Jinfu had already given up his hatred. He had been severely damaged physically and mentally in the war. The little girl now gave her enemy a big hug and then said softly: "You don't have to blame yourself anymore, I have forgiven you..."
Now, almost every year, Pan Jinfu will go to the world. Every place tells its own story and lets people understand the harm caused by war. As Pan Jinfu said: "We cannot change the past, but we can work hard to create a peaceful future." ”
- Conclusion
Although forgiveness is difficult to do, it can prevent us from being tortured by the pain of the past. Pan Jinfu’s forgiveness not only relieved Plummer, but also made him truly free.
Regardless of the reason Regardless of the purpose, the victims of war will be the common people. Faced with conflicts of interest, countries should be more understanding, less confrontational, learn from history, avoid war, and cherish peace!
