Kim Phuc and Her Son Thomas

Daily Kos has an update on Kim Phuc, “The Napalm Girl,” with some good links. The following photo of Kim now, with Thomas, is taken from that article.

Kim Phuc and her son, Thomas

There are many images from the war in Viet-Nam, such as the one of Kim then, that burn in my mind and others' minds, and always will. The image of the military shooting college students in Ohio is another one of those images.

Now there is this image of Thomas and his mother, now Canadians, to remember.

This struck me particularly strongly this morning because I just finished reading La muerte de Artemio Cruz, by Carlos Fuentes. There is much to say about the book but the main point that comes to me right now is the question of there being any redemption from crimes of this magnitude. Fuentes writes of them in the context of Mexico and has his protagonist envisioning redemptions just before he dies. Here is one vision near the end of the book:

“But here life will already have begun the next phase, ceasing to be the past....Innocence will perish, not at the hands of guilt, but at the hands of amorous astonishment...”