Vietnam Research Writing Exercise: Maddie Vincent

I researched the famous photo "Napalm Girl". Kim Phuc, the napalm girl, and many other civilians had taken shelter in a Buddhist temple the day that the battle started. By the second day, a lot of the air strikes and attacks had shifted near the temple. Some of the civilians in the temple decided to flee because the fighting was getting so close and, Kim Phuc was in that group. Many of the civilians that fled the temple were wearing clothes that resembled Vietcong uniforms. The pilot of the strike aircraft saw the group and had seconds to identify them and decide his plan of action. Unfortunately, the pilot thought that Kim Phuc and the rest of her group were armed NVA and decided to douse them in napalm. Kim was ahead of the infected area so the napalm only got on her back and arm but, her clothes caught on fire and she had to strip down as she was running. Many of the people that were in Kim's group died from the napalm. Kim continued to run naked down the streets until she came across a makeshift aid station where they poured cold water over her burns and then transported her to a hospital in Saigon. When Kim arrived to the hospital the doctors were unsure if she would survive or not. Over 14 months Kim went through 17 surgeries trying to repair the burns that covered 50% of her body. For the next 10 years she was very limited in her range of motion until she got reconstructive surgery in 1982. At first napalm was used in flamethrowers for ground troops to burn sections of the forests, hoping to eliminate any enemy fighters. Later, bombers began to drop napalm bombs because they could destroy up to 2,500 square yards. To put things in perspective of how bad napalm hurts, "Water boils at 212 degrees. Napalm generates temperatures 1,500- 2,200 degrees." I think that the subject of napalm is important because it was used a lot in the Vietnam war. During the war there were 8 million tons of bombs dropped on Vietnam, which is 3 times more then they used in WW2. (word count 368)

A photo of Kim Phuc with the caption, "Kim displays her lingering scars from the incident that set the course for her life" 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/napalm-girl

https://vietnamawbb.weebly.com/napalm-agent-orange.html