Free Republic

The picture is the iconic image of a Vietnamese girl, naked, burned by napalm as she runs down a road.The girl is Kim Phuc, and her life could have ended in that moment. It didn’t. She has taken an extraordinary journey and has not let that searing moment in her life define her: Despite the fear that no one would want her, Kim is now married and has two sons. She says her conversion from the Cao Dai religion to Christianity at the age of 19 changed everything.“And when I read in John 14:6, where Jesus say, ‘I am the...

...It only took a second for Associated Press photographer Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut to snap the iconic black-and-white image 40 years ago. It communicated the horrors of the Vietnam War in a way words could never describe, helping to end one of America's darkest eras. "I really wanted to escape from that little girl," says the subject of photo, Kim Phuc, now 49. "But it seems to me that the picture didn't let me go." ...She worked hard and was accepted into medical school to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. But all that ended once the new communist...

I have never been involved in "veterans' issues", and I find it revolting to see the media's cameras pass a hundred well dressed and well adjusted veterans with their families, to focus on "Viet Nam vets" who display themselves in camouflage that was not even issued until 1980. These men are often "wannabees", who steal honors they never earned, discredit men who did what they lacked courage to do, and try to blame the failures of their lives on the fiery mold of "a terrible war" that many, perhaps most, did not even see. Their "memories" and stories are usually...