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Show NaoaNamaUBTalaOBN Kims ambition to be a dixtor, the Vietnamese Communists took away that dream when they realized she could be used more effectively as a propaganda tool. And as that tool, she suftered the dual life of being pampered as a celebrity when abroad, but treated with disdain, poverty, and starvation when at home. Yet. two words kept falling from Kim's lips and strengthening her faith: "I forgive." The South Vietnamese people sought only basic needs. They desired to be left alone, to feed their children, to laugh at each others jokes, to work, to worship, to sleep and dream: they ing daily pains that only a burn victim could know, found her destiny. Each chapter of Kim's life a snapshot of almost 40 years roils with emotion, beginning with the miracle of surviving her initial burns. From that tragic moment forward, her mother and family overprotected her and treated her as a weak and ugly bum victim, a w'oman destined to live her life alone. From high school on, she spent her life shadowed by mm-- ; ders," individually assigned hawks for the Vietnamese government who watched her constantly for any transgression of word or deed. Dismissing didn't ask to be pawns of superpowers, of endless and or victims of land-graesoteric debates concerning communism and capitalism. And Kim Phuc wanted only to be "normal. It took the face of one child, screaming in pain, nakedly Iroen in ime. to help bring us all to our senses. From her modest beginnings in Vietnam to her successful new life in Canada, her dramatic siory will set you on fire. Clay Stafford is a w riter ami filmmaker who lives near Nashville. THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE The Story of IGm Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War By Denise Chong VBung. $23.95 ISBN 0C7MSO4OX REVIEW Dude" as in dude ranch is derived from almost literally a lazy fellow? BY CLAY STAFFORD On June 8, 1972. a photographer captured the now infamous image of Kim Phuc. a Vietnamese a naked down Trang girl, running Bang highway, her clothes and skin Calamity Jane, born Martha Jane Cannary, was described incinerated by American napalm. The photograph was featured in news periodicals around the globe, immediately altering the international perspective of the Vietnam conflict. To the world. Kim became a living symbol of the horror of war." In this easy-to- - through a smallpox epidemic. Native American tribes of the Northern Plains dubbed U.S. Army foot soldiers as walk a heaps?" It is estimated that twenty five percent of the Wild West's cow boys were African Americans? It took eighty riders, uncounted horses, and 1 90 relay stations for the Pony Express to cover the 1 ,600 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California? For the record: seven days, seventeen hours. d, Two words follow (and exhaustive) biography, Denise Chong attempts to give an overview of the Vietnam confrontation. and a fair one at that. She focuses on Kim Phuc'i family and has successfully painted through her own s research, reading, and the simple peasant world in whuh they lived, and the attacks they endured from all sides: Invasion by Communists ruthless from the north: manipulation by faraway nations in the West, deceit and corruption by greedy leaders within their own ranks; and betraval bv disingenuous neighbors and even family members. Essentially an entire generation of children grew into adults knowing only terror, maiming, death, manipulation, distrust. and sell imposed silence, the latter only if one wanted to live. Within this world Kim Phuc. fight- inter-view- on-sit- e Chinese-sponsore- I d CEEESIH! by some as twice as ugly as sin and with a face only a grizzly could love? Still, this hunter and trapper, muleskinner. and sometime prostitute truly had a heart of gold, once nursing an entire tow n i nine-year-o- kept falling from Kims lips and strengthening her faith: I forgive. the German dudenkop. WHAT THEY DIM!I TEACH YOU ABOUT THE WILD WEST by Mike Wright 368 pages, hardcover $24.95, Informative and entertaining . . . fwuscs on the lives and ways of ordinary soldiers and those they left behind." Publishers Weekly Holds the attention latlbiey DidntTeajMou About $24.95, 352 pages, hardcover also in softcover ARevolution WIS. WHtM Available at fine bookstores everywhere from Presidio 'VPress America's Foremost Publisher of Military History P 0 feo fcovjtc A 7M mm sure what startling fan will arise, orwhat new facet of human behavior will be revealed" San Antonio ixpress Ibe American $17.95, bet a use the reader is never rx Sews $24.95, 368 pages, hardcover |