A new novel by bestselling US author Kristin Hannah remembers the forgotten nurses of the Vietnam War, whose service went unrecognised for decades.
An emergency warning is active for a fire burning in in the southern part of Dalyellup, in Western Australia. Keep up to date withOn May 21, 1968, nurse Jan McCarthy arrived in South Vietnam to take up a post at the 1st Australian Field Hospital at Vũng TàuIt was her 28th birthday, and McCarthy would spend the next 12 months in the region, working around the clock treating patients injured on the frontline of the Vietnam War.
However, recognition of their extraordinary service is growing, thanks in part to the efforts of two women — an Australian and an American — who have dedicated themselves to telling these important stories.the book Our Vietnam Nurses, author and journalist Annabelle Brayley shares the stories of some of the hundreds of nurses — including McCarthy — who served in Vietnam during the war.
Thirty-two RAAF nurses also completed 60-day secondments with the US air force. Based in Manila, the nurses formed part of the four daily 'milk runs' — medevac missions to pick up wounded American and Korean soldiers in South Vietnam. The main character, 21-year-old Frankie McGrath, enlists as a nurse in the US army and is posted to the 36th Evacuation Hospital in Vietnam after a perfunctory eight weeks' training.
"When the women vets came home from Vietnam, many of them were suffering from what we now know is PTSD, and there was no help for them," Hannah says. However, the returning servicemen and women faced a cool or even openly hostile reception from the public. " were on the ground … every time they got out of a plane to load wounded to take them back to Butterworth ," she says.