The village of Trảng Bàng was decidedly ordinary. The 8th June 1972 was to be anything but. As a South Vietnamese plane flew overhead, it unleashed its payload on the residents below. Decades on, the name of this devastating weapon remains ingrained on the world’s consciousness – napalm.
Napalm was an effective weapon. Buildings and bunkers were powerless in the face of its heat. But it was also a savage weapon. Woe betide any wretched human being to whom this ferocious, flesh-searing fireball stuck to and burned with agonising power.
Kim Phuc will forever be known as Napalm Girl. Aged just nine years old, she appeared in one of the most iconic photos that has ever been snapped. Her face was contorted with pain and fear as she ran from the thick smoke that had engulfed her village. She was naked as the day she was born and the crippling effects of this weapon were evident across her wiry body. Surely no image has done more to expose the brutality of chemical warfare.
While the photo is instantly recognisable, few know the story of what came next. Phuc spent over a year in hospital, undergoing 17 surgical procedures. It was many years before she was able to properly move again. With hard work and intense care, she has made a remarkable physical recovery in the decades that have followed. Yet, take just one glance and you’ll see the grotesque evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. Phuc’s scars will never heal.
The scars aren’t just physical either. They’re emotional too. While telling her story, Phuc has described the consuming bitterness that came to dominate her life and the rage that burned within her heart. In fact, she considers this to have been even more agonising than the napalm itself. She longed for relief from her anger and bitterness, but simply couldn’t find an effective cure. In desperation, she turned to religion. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism; she investigated them all. Finally, she stumbled across a New Testament and discovered Jesus, the wounded one, the one who also bears scars. In Jesus, she discovered one who truly knows pain. In Jesus, she found one whose words are trustworthy in a world characterised by lies. In Jesus she found the one who could bring her the healing that was so elusive.
Phuc recognises that were it not for her grotesque injuries, she would never have found Jesus for herself. Would she change what happened? Not at all. Listen to her own words:
“There is nothing greater or more powerful than the love of our blessed Saviour…I will forever bear the scars of that day, and that picture will always serve as a reminder of the unspeakable evil of which humanity is capable. That picture defined my life. Today, I thank God for that picture. Today, I thank God for everything—even for that road. ESPECIALLY for that road.”
What a story! Why not go online and read it for yourself?
But also—what incredible power there is in knowing that Jesus Christ can overturn the power of scars so terribly wrought. Many in our world have scars—physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. The same scarred Jesus is still able to bring peace and healing today.
Milford RPC 
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