Woman once called 'Napalm Girl' says she endorses showing photos of children killed by 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde, Texas

HELPS CHILDREN: Kim Phuc Phan Ti, shown in a New York Times photo at her home in Canada, is founder of Kim Foundation International, which provides aid to child victims of war. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- After mass shootings at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket and at an elementary school in Texas, I urged news media like CNN and The New York Times to obtain crime scene photos of the victims to confront officials who refuse to curb gun sales.

Now, a victim of war sees a need for the same kind of confrontation with members of Congress who say no action in necessary.

In a guest essay in The Times' Opinion section, Kim Phuc Phan Ti -- the 9-year-old who became known as "Napalm Girl" after her clothes were stripped off in an attack -- says:

"I know what it is like to have your village bombed, your home devastated, to see family members die and bodies of innocent civilians lying in the street. These are the horrors of war from Vietnam memorialized in countless photographs and newsreels. Sadly, they are also the images of wars everywhere, of precious human lives being damaged and destroyed today in Ukraine.

"They are, in a different way, also the horrific images coming from school shootings. We may not see the bodies, as we do with foreign wars, but these attacks are the domestic equivalent of war. The thought of sharing the images of the carnage, especially of children, may seem unbearable — but we should confront them. It is easier to hide from the realities of war if we don’t see the consequences.

"I cannot speak for the families in Uvalde, Texas, but I think that showing the world what the aftermath of a gun rampage truly looks like can deliver the awful reality. We must face this violence head-on, and the first step is to look at it."