Rather slow speed please, I need the students to be able to repeat. (still, you don't need to pause after each sentence! ) Feel free to make any correction you consider necessary!
This document is a photograph taken by Nick Ut in 1972, during the Vietnam War.
It is entitled « Napalm Girl » or « The Terror of war ».
In the middle of the picture, we can see a girl, probably aged around 10. She is naked, in the middle of the road with her arms open. She is crying and she looks terrified.
Around the girl there are other children who are crying and running. Behind the children, 3 soldiers are following.
In the foreground , there is some dark smoke.
We can easily imagine that the children are trying to escape because a bomb exploded.
They are crying probably because they are really scared or hurt.
We can suppose that the soldiers are protecting the children, or on the contrary that they are chasing them.
In fact, the title of the picture « Napalm girl» helps us understand the situation : the little girl was certainly burnt by napalm, that’s why she is naked and she seems to suffer .
I guess the photographer wanted to denounce the violence of the war and put people face to face with the victims. The focus of the picture is on the little girl and it makes the viewer feel uncomfortable.
To me, this picture is shocking because it is violent and it shows that the victims of the Vietnam war were not only soldiers. Wars end in many people’s death, including innocent people.
Thanks to photographers like Nick Ut, people realized the atrocities of the Vietnam War and they protested to end it. The US troops left Vietnam in 1973.
