ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 TAG: 9702180107
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PURCELLVILLE
SOURCE: Associated Press
WHEN JOHN PLUMMER saw the famous photo of a Vietnamese girl fleeing her napalmed village, arms outsretched, he knew: He'd done it.
On June 8, 1972, John Plummer ordered an airstrike on a South Vietnamese village.
When the napalm hit, 9-year-old Pham Thi Kim Phuc was hiding in a pagoda. She ran, naked and screaming, from her village.
The moment was captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph that perhaps is the most famous image of the Vietnam War.
Now John Plummer is 49 and pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church in Purcellville.
Pham Thi Kim Phuc is 33 and living in Canada with her husband and 2-year-old son. They are expecting a second child. Kim still bears scars on her back, chest and left arm from the napalm.
On Nov. 11, at a Veterans Day program at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, Plummer and Kim met, face to face, for the first time.
Plummer asked Kim for forgiveness.
The bombing had haunted Plummer for years, but he shared the experience with few people until he told his story to a United Methodist ministers' convocation last month in Blackstone.
In an article in the Jan. 30 issue of Virginia United Methodist Advocate, a publication of the Virginia Annual Conference of the denomination, Plummer wrote of the twists and turns on the long road that led him to the war memorial.
Plummer was 24 and an Army captain in June 1972. Part of his job was coordinating airstrikes for the Third Regional Assistance Command. The area around the village of Trang Bang, 25 miles west of Saigon, had been infiltrated by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Plummer called for an airstrike on the area by the South Vietnamese air force.
``I asked the Vietnamese because they had aircraft slow enough to be more accurate with the bombs,'' he said.
He did not know that Kim and others had taken refuge in a Buddhist pagoda in the village that would take a direct hit. Plummer said he had been assured twice that no civilians were in the area.
But Kim and the others were there. In a public appearance last year, Kim recalled the terror she had felt as a little girl when fire rained down on her.
The next morning, Plummer picked up Stars and Stripes, an Army newspaper. On the front page was the soon-to-be-famous picture of Kim running down the road.
``As I read the caption, I discovered, to my horror, that she was from Trang Bang,'' Plummer said. ``My knees nearly gave way as it suddenly began to dawn on me that she had been hit with the napalm I had directed the day before.''
Over the years, Plummer wrote, he ``came to grips with the fact that I was only doing my job and that I had done everything I could to make sure the area was clear of civilians, but I was stabbed in the heart every time I saw the picture.''
Plummer had been discharged from the Army in 1974, after 91/2 years in the service. He was a civilian flight instructor until 1982 and later, for BDM Engineering Services Co., a defense contractor in McLean.
Seven years ago, he said, he realized he was ``playing games'' with God.
``I was going to church because I was expected to,'' he said. ``In 1990, I had a couple of spiritual experiences. I made a decision to invite Christ into my life and committed my life to him.''
He went to Wesley Seminary in Washington and at the same time served as pastor of Bethel United Methodist Church in Warrenton. Two years ago, he was appointed pastor of Bethany Church.
Decades had passed and his life had changed, but the picture of Kim continued to haunt Plummer. Kim, meanwhile, had defected and was living in Newfoundland with her husband.
On Veterans Day, Plummer went with his wife and some friends from the Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network - an Internet group of helicopter pilots who had flown in Vietnam - to the Vietnam Memorial where Kim was speaking.
Kim talked of the man responsible for her injuries.
``If I had a chance to talk with him, I would tell him I hold no animosity and I forgive him. ... We cannot change history, but together we can do good and work toward building the future,'' she said.
Plummer wrote a note and asked for a meeting.
When Pham Thi Kim Phuc looked into Plummer's eyes ``she saw my grief, my pain, my sorrow,'' he said. She held out her arms to me and embraced me. All I could say was: `I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry' over and over again. At the same time she was saying: `It's all right, it's all right. I forgive, I forgive.'''
Plummer continued: ``When she held out her arms and enfolded me, it was the most freeing, heavenly experience. It's hard to put words on something that tremendous. It opened a whole new door in my Christian walk. My whole ministry has shifted a little more toward the message of forgiveness and reconciliation.''
LENGTH: Medium: 95 linesby CNB