I am prominently mentioned in David Burnett’s Dec. 18 Thursday Opinion essay, “The debate over the ‘Napalm Girl’ photo doesn’t shake me. I was there.,” and feel compelled to respond. Put plainly: Burnett is wrong. The Associated Press’s Nick Ut did not take that photograph. It was taken by a stringer, Nguyen Thanh Nghe.
I was a local‑hire photo editor at the AP in Saigon that day in June 1972. I knew it was taken by a stringer, or freelancer, but was ordered by my superior, Horst Faas, to put Ut’s name on the caption. Fearing for my job and family, I complied — a decision that has weighed on me for 50 years.
Burnett’s recollection of Ut rushing ahead of the line at Trang Bang has long been discredited. He admits he was focused on changing the film in his Leica. His supposed proof — Faas telling Ut “good work” in a German accent — is equally flawed. By then, the wrongly captioned photo had already been processed and radiophotoed to Tokyo under my supervision. I had gone home, visibly upset, as my wife recalled in “The Stringer.”
Burnett has repeated this account for years in lectures and interviews, despite being told the truth by me in 2011. His persistence has helped entrench a myth that contradicts the record.
Burnett witnessed only the dawn of the Napalm Girl legend — and its false attribution to Ut. The record is clear. Journalism demands fidelity to fact, not mythmaking. Memory, however vivid, cannot override documented truth.
Carl Robinson, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
David Burnett’s Dec. 18 essay about who took the famous 1972 photograph in Vietnam, basically argued that because he was there, he knows what he saw. He described “strong memories” of the scene like they happened “yesterday.” He argued that those memories “live on” while other evidence has faded with time. But Burnett’s memories might be the least reliable evidence of any in this debate.
Burnett appears to embrace a common misconception that memory resembles a video recording or a photograph: you pull up the file, look at it and return it to the hard drive unmolested. But it doesn’t work like that.
Every time a memory is retrieved from long-term “storage,” it is prone to being revised and altered to fit a personal narrative, new or wrong information, a photo, mistaken conclusions and other influences. Over much time, memories can become increasingly at odds with reality, sometimes wildly so. Moreover, these “edited” memories can seem more real and vivid than recent ones.
Studies that have tried to distinguish real memories from false ones do no better than chance. Instead of a video or photo, researchers describe memory as more like an ongoing painting, typically with details and images periodically removed or added.
After 50 years of recalling memories from this traumatic incident countless times — all predicated on a belief that Nick Ut took the photo — Burnett strains credulity in saying he remembers what he saw like it happened yesterday. Are Burnett’s memories somehow immune from time and other influences? It’s possible. But memory science says it’s unlikely.
Jim Okerblom, San Diego
Combat cheating the old-fashioned way
The Dec. 12 online news article “Professors are turning to this old-school method to stop AI use on exams” described the uptick of oral exams in response to widespread artificial intelligence use. Oral exams are great for this, but from my experience, handwritten assessments written in class will be the more common method used by teachers concerned about cheating.
Indeed, this is what I have seen as a student at the University of Massachusetts and what I have done when teaching introductory Latin classes. Ironically, this means AI is going to restore some value to an art that seemed on death’s door in the computer age: clear penmanship.
As more and more teachers turn to handwritten assignments to prevent AI-generated work, students will need to be able to write clearly. (And believe me, some students are pushing what can be called legible handwriting to the extremes.) They will also need the stamina to write paragraphs at a time, which is an ability I find myself losing as I write less and type more.
To build this stamina, students need to practice using their writing muscles both in and out of the classroom. I encourage elementary school teachers to emphasize penmanship in their classes and give assignments on paper. At home, children should have access to paper and writing utensils. And in the spirit of the holiday season, buy some stamps and make sure that the grandparents get a handwritten thank-you note.
Joseph Amsbary, Reston
Post Opinions wants to know: Have you ever gotten an opportunity to set the record straight? Tell us what happened, and your response might be published in the letters to the editor section. wapo.st/record
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