This photograph was taken in June of 1972 by Nick Ut outside the small city of Trang Bang. The small girl with her clothes burned from her body shown running away from the ruin was Kim Phuc. The soldiers seen in the background are Army of the Republic of Vietnam soldiers. The fires in the background is napalm burning. These elements by themselves simply show a small moment

As reporters covered the Vietnam War they discovered that after time the general public was becoming displeased with our involvement in the war. The reasons were unclear and since the government gave reporters free reign of what was published, many reports became one-sided or misleading. Many times only one side of the story was told. It was usually the side that would sell more papers or make a better story. This photograph is the perfect example of what was wrong with reporting stories and publishing news clips.

A Methodist minister stepped forward to accept Kim Phuc's forgiveness at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day 1996. He was an American officer in Vietnam, but he was NOT a commander and had no command authority. He was a low level staff officer working on the staff of the US Army advisors in a bunker more than 80 kilometers from the fighting. He was serving in an assignment without authority to directly or indirectly coordinate actions with VNAF, much less command, order, or direct any bombing activity. When his own commanding officer and the operations officer of the unit were questioned about the bombing they clarified that he had no authority, capacity, or capability to order any Vietnamese aircraft to do anything. They also stated it would not have been possible for him to do what he has claimed. No one who was working in that bunker could order the VNAF to take any action whatever. This Minister was involved in only a superficial manner. His participation consisted of no more than administratively releasing some sorties of VNAF aircraft back to VNAF control. This was a clerical response to the VNAF command. His action included absolutely no command or control.

A report was also written that told the story of how Kim and her family were hit when the Buddhist pagoda they took refuge was bombed. According to the story the pagoda took a direct hit. This is another falsehood. When Kim was interviewed about the bombing later, she stated that when her family left the pagoda to run along the road, and that was when they were actually when they were hit. The pagoda was not targeted by the VNAF and was not hit. When Kim's family, other civilians, and ARVN soldiers ran from the pagoda a Vietnamese fighter pilot spotted them. What the pilot saw was people running toward the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) positions, where the journalists and photographers were also located. Since there were soldiers in the group as clearly seen in the photograph he also saw weapons. In a split-second d

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Approximate Word count = 1710
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)