Random Excellence: Steve Russell

A few days ago was the 40th anniversary of one of the most famous photos of the Vietnam war, one which arguably changed the course of the war by affecting public opinion.

Toronto Star staff photographer Steve Russell documented the occasion. I really liked his portraits of Kim and her "Uncle Ut" together. I haven't reproduced one of the pictures here because I thought you might appreciate seeing all of them and browsing Steve's commentary for yourself.

Thanks to Pete Wilkinson for passing this along.

Mike

ADDENDUM: What a difference a moment makes. You remember David Burnett, who John Camp interviewed on TOP not long ago. David was right there when Nick Ut made his most famous photo...but he was reloading film. His picture—a few moments too late—can be seen with his article about it at the Washington Post.

Below is David's portrait of Kim Phuc made just last week.

Kim Phuc. Photo by David Burnett.

UPDATE from David Burnett:  

I attended a wonderful get together a week ago in Toronto, the exact 40th anniversary of the Trang Bang bombing, and it was quite extraordinary in many ways. Yes, I was a photographer who happened to be there. When someone takes a great picture, others are often around making other images. That day I was one of those making other pictures but not the picture.

Minutes after Nick Ut took his famous photo, Chris Wain pours water over Kim's burns. The journalists took her to a hospital and insisted she be treated, although the hospital staff apparently didn't believe she could be saved. Photo by David Burnett/Contact Press Images.

But far more amazing was the gathering, for the first time in decades, of all the people who had some important impact on this little nine-year-old Vietnamese village girl's life.

Nick did take the kids to a Saigon hospital where Kim Phuc was, after many words, admitted. The staff had very little optimism that she would survive, so while she was treated, it was at a rather low level of medical technology. She was burned over her shoulders and neck, and apparently the staff just thought she wouldn't make it. Four days after the event, the London office of ITN told their correspondent Chris Wain (in poncho, pouring water on her wounds) to find out who this little girl was. As with so many events, she was still anonymous to the world. Chris and the BBC correspondent went to the hospital, found her, realized nothing good would happen there, and took it upon themselves to have her moved to the Barsky Unit, a private U.S. Med Center which specialized in burn therapy. There she started receiving the kind of treatment which allowed her to live.

She was in and out of hospitals for years.

About six years later, when she was still unable to move her neck because of scar tissue, she was found again by a photographer from Stern (the German weekly) who had photographed her before. He visited her at home back in Trang Bang, and realized she still needed serious treatment. He managed to get her a passport and have her flown to Germany, where she stayed for months, had much corrective surgery, and recovered her ability to turn her head fully.

Kim returned to Vietnam and stayed there until the late 1980s when she applied to University in Cuba. She went to school there, met a young Vietnamese guy, and got married. They spent their honeymoon in Moscow. (Describing it, she said, "can you imagine having a honeymoon in Moscow?") On the return trip to Havana the plane made a fuel stop in Gander, Newfoundland. On the spur of the moment they found a Customs officer and decided to defect. They managed to resettle in Canada, near Toronto.

Later, as she thrived—she has a family with two boys, now 14 and 18—she started a foundation, the Kim Foundation, dedicated to helping children who are victims of war.

All of which is background to last Friday's dinner.

Present for the first time in all those years were the following: Kim Phuc and her family; Nick Ut (whom she had seen regularly for all these years, and who she calls "Uncle Ut"); Chris Wain (the TV correspondent who got her moved to the burn hospital); Marjorie Arsenault (the nurse who cared for Kim at the Barsky Unit hospital in the mid-1970s, who is now 91 years old); and Murray Osmond (the Canadian Customs officer who ushered her and her husband into safety when they defected.) Everyone in the room at the same time...sharing an amazing history, all of which began with an accidental bombing—a frightening moment caught by a young photographer with his Leica, and shown around the world in the days of wire service transmitters which looked like cheap fax machines.

One picture can take on a very long life if the story is one that bears telling.

David Burnett
New York, June 16th, 2012

David in Vietnam in 1971

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Paul Van: "What amazes me, is that every time I see a writeup about Nick Ut's photo, I learn something new. Joe McNally also had a blog post about it. And I seem to recall reading that Nick Ut was instrumental in having Kim transferred to a hospital where she could be properly treated. All in all, it is a photograph and story that continues to touch people long after the event. Thank you for posting this."

Featured Comment by Rob Graves: "Thanks. I had always assumed Kim had died, and every time I saw the photo, would think 'why didn't anybody do anything?' So, I was also pleased to read that Nick Ut had put the camera down after the photo and really helped (in an actual sense—not the ongoing influence of the photo). That Nick Ut was only 21 at the time seems to make the whole thing even more remarkable."

Comments

[John King]

There is a well-written and moving story about Kim Phuc

The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War by Denise Chong
Permalink: http://amzn.com/0140280219

[Adam Z.]

This made my day. Thank you so much for posting it!

[Tom Burke]

Have you seen this video on YouTube?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2dEqrN4i0

There was also a TV news team present at the scene, from ITN, and this is their film. I assume that the naked girl they film is in fact Kim Phuc; what's interesting is that in the TV footage, she just runs through the frame (at about 50 seconds), there isn't the 'frozen moment' that makes Nick Ut's picture so memorable.

The later footage of the baby in the woman's arms is very disturbing.

[Manuel]

Nick Ut's picture is possibly the most compelling, impactful photograph I've seen - and surely I'm not alone in saying so. It reminds how powerful an image can be - and, at the same time, it makes us (even more) aware of the horrors of war. Which, in its turn, prompts some dark reflections on the world and mankind. In this it is accompanied by Kevin Carter's famous photograph of the starving child with the vulture, taken in Sudan, and some of James Nachtwey's photos. Kudos for the evocation, Mike.

[peter]

In 1972, Nick Ut had free access to the battlefield. Today, whenever the USA is involved with military action on the ground, journalists don't. How many 'napalm girls' have we have missed since 1972?

[Michael]

Last Thursday Horst Faas, important war photographer who discovered and educated local photographers (Nick Ut amongst others) died.

[Ariel_E]

Let me see if I got this right: if in "Random excellence" your intention is to give merit to whoever took the picture in question, then according to the linked page, that guy was apparently Nick Ut, who appears in several of the photos of the event Steve Russel documented. Please do correct me if I got it wrong and in any case, there's no need for you to post this comment.

[Stan B.]

Ironically, a photo like that today stands an uphill battle of getting published and distributed in any meaningful, worthwhile manner thanks to the hypocritical Conservative bloc in our Congress.

Mr. Ut would not be hailed as a Pulitzer prize winning photographer- but condemned as a child pornographer.

http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2012/06/the-mountaintop-mining-kiddie-porn-smear-the-photo-must-be-seen/

[David Paterson]

Thanks for pointing us to this story. Moving and inspiring in many ways.

[Mike Johnston]

Ariel_E,
Nick Ut took the picture of Kim Phuc, the picture known as "The napalm girl," 40 years ago. It was Steve's portraits of Kim and "Uncle Ut" together that I meant to highlight today.

Mike

[Jeff]

David Burnett's photo reminds me of another TOP post:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/04/sixtenths-of-a-second-two-lives-forever-changed.html

[LisaV]

Wonderful story and so very inspiring for sure. The photograph is so descriptive that you can almost feel the emotion coming from those children. Thank you for posting it as a reminder that with every day there are new opportunities.

[Earl Dunbar]

That photo was critical for me to form my position about the war.

And thank whatever powers that be not only for Nick, but for the Toronto Star, which continues as one of the great journalistic forces of our times. I am headed to Toronto tomorrow (Sunday, Father's Day) to spend a little time with my children. It's always good to go home.

[Sarge]

Kim Phuc's (The girl in the picture) story is apparently standard fare recounted by Vietnamese tour guides to tourists en route to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Our tour guide ("Jackie," an ARVN lieutenant during the Vietnam war) had a photocopy of Nick Ut's iconic photo which he passed around as part of his briefing. He pointed out to us the spot along Highway 22 where the picture was taken. He also told us the apochryphal story about Kim meeting her alleged bomber ("pilot") "in Canada" and forgiving him. He seemed to believe that the perpetrators of the atrocity were Americans. (The napalm bombs were American, dropped by the South Vietnamese Air Force.)

Steve Russel's photos of Nick Ut and Kim Phuc both looking well and happily reunited 40 years on are uplifting. Like Steve said, this is not their first reunion. Nick Ut checked on Kim while she was undergoing treatment for severe burns in a Saigon hospital (where Nick and other journalists took her and the other child victims after taking photos), and kept in touch with her during the war until the fall of Saigon and thereafter.

Meanwhile, Kim Phuc parlayed her "celebrity" for the benefit of child victims of latter-day wars through her foundation and UN agencies.

Wikipedia has well-documented entry of Kim Phuc and Nick Ut's remarkable journey here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Phuc

[Peter Croft]

What a beautiful lady and what a wonderful portrait. I can feel the warmth from here. Wow.

[wchen]

Tom Burke:
"The later footage of the baby in the woman's arms is very disturbing."

Was that missed by those photographers around? Would have made a strong image I guess.

The baby must have little chance to survive. Kim Phuc was very luck after the event.

[Steve Rosenbach]

I revere Kim Phuc for overcoming this horrible trauma at age 9 and then living her life in such an exemplary manner.

But, 40 years on, there is no excuse for not understanding what the real atrocity was here and who were its perpetrators.

The proximate cause for this event was that her village of Trang Bang was attacked and occupied by North Vietnamese troops. South Vietnamese forces came to the aid of their countrymen, but in the process, a South Vietnamese pilot mistook his own soldiers, leading the civilians to safety, for enemy, and dropped the napalm on them, rather than the NVA.

Some time ago, Kim Phuc said, referring to her life under Communist rule,

"I got burned by napalm, and I became a victim of war … but growing up then [under Communist rule], I became another kind of victim. … I wished I died in that attack with my cousin, with my South Vietnamese soldiers."

Her phrase, "...my South Vietnamese soldiers..." makes it clear that Kim understands who wore black hats and who white.

By this time this photo was taken, American combat troops had been withdrawn from Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese, with our financial help, were more than holding their own against the aggression by the North. It's a great tragedy that this amazing photo was used to tell US audiences exactly the wrong story. It was fundamental to turning public opinion against continued assistance to the South Vietnamese in defending their country.

Two years later, Congress voted to cut off aid to South Vietnam, and not long after, the country fell to the North. Thus started years of years of dark existence for the former citizens of South Vietnam under communist rule.

The only saving grace of our mistake in abandoning South Vietnam is that so many brave and worthwhile Vietnamese refugees ended up in the US and Canada and have contributed so richly to our societies.

[Nigel]

Call me shallow, but I couldn't help but notice this comment in the captions to David Burnett's photographs in the Washington Post:

“It took another 20 or 30 seconds for me to finish loading my stubborn Leica..."

[Stan B.]

Steve Rosenbach- Before neatly summarizing and packaging a foreign country's history, you'd do well to study the history of empire and colonialism throughout the world, and the legacy of devastation and atrocity it bequeaths upon its subjects.

We do agree on a couple of things, however- that photo and the ones taken at My Lai (where US forces slaughtered hundreds of innocent Vietnamese men, women and children) did help turn American opinion, and yes, what occurred in Viet Nam (and Cambodia) was a travesty that we have yet to learn from, as made abundantly clear in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Mike Johnston]

[clip] Before neatly summarizing and packaging [clip]

And that's quite enough on subject here, from anyone on any side of that issue. Thanks.

Mike the mod.

[MartinP]

As a matter of interest, following surmising by a couple of others above...

According to a later report by Horst Fass (http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng_intro.htm) and also using other AP based sources, the two wounded babies/toddlers seen in the ITN film-clip were relatives of Kim Phuc and both died soon after the incident.

The AP bureau, where Fass was chief photographer, received eight rolls of black-and-white film but most of the negatives were later destroyed during a "weeding out" of the huge archives after the war. The pictures now used are based on digital-copies of the negs of the original, AP-distributed, images, which are securely stored.