Forty years later: Kim Phuc, the girl in the photo
It’s been forty years since this photo shocked Americans:
Do you know the story behind the photo? I tell it in this article at PJ. Some of what you read may surprise you.
[NOTE: I’ve written about the photo before, in a different context. See this and this.]
I never knew this. I’m beginning to really hate our press.
Another famous picture is the when that shows a South Vietnamese official (in Saigon ) shooting a North Vietnamese in the head. The story behind that picture is instructive.
Jeeze, makes me look forward to August.
Michael: the links at the end, to old posts of mine, tell that story as well.
holmes.
I presume you meant “beginning” metaphorically.
Anybody who’s been paying attention began decades ago.
Richard- yes, I hated the press before. But beginning to really hate it.
I remember taking that magazine into my room from the hiding place that my mother stashed it in. I was very young but very curious. I DO remember thinking “why would America do this?”.
Sushisistah: I think your reaction was an extremely common one. And not just among the very young.
Yep, that’s our press: “The facts, however interesting, are irrelevant. I reject reality and substitute my own! The important thing is the story I want to tell, facts be damned!”
PapaMAS: I think it’s even more complicated than that. Sometimes the facts were reported wrong regarding the photo. But sometimes they were merely omitted, or important parts omitted. Sometimes (I would guess) that omission was done purposely and strategically, but sometimes it was done ignorantly and without even realizing the importance of the deeper context.
I added a note about the photo in the subsequent thread about 2-3 days after this one.