The Napalm Girl Standard

Loading . . . Loading . . . Loading . . . The Napalm Girl Standard By: Som-Mai Nguyen Date: Apr. 24, 2025 Illustrations: Nguyen Tran How the war’s most horrific photograph is now a litmus test for free speech in the era of social media. It’s a photo you may have already seen. Captured in stark black and white, several Vietnamese children run down a road, flanked by soldiers. In the left foreground, there is a crying child whose mouth is contorted. But the viewer’s eye drifts toward the center and the main subject of the photograph: a 9-year-old girl, who is naked, crying, and shrieking in agony from the burns on her body. The photograph is titled “The Terror of War,” but it is ubiquitously known as the Napalm Girl photograph. The napalm attack that the children were fleeing was an instance of friendly fire, carried out by South Vietnamese forces allied with the United States, flying American-made planes and dropping American napalm in an attempt to flush out Northern forces from hid ... Read full article.