[Vietnam veteran Jan Mccarthy] I always know what date I arrived in Vietnam. It was a Qantas flight and it was just full of military people and we had to go via Singapore.
I was the only female on board and you couldn't get out of the plane in Singapore in your military uniform, because they didn't condone the war.
So I had a dress and I had to change in the toilet area, which was very difficult. But the boys just stood up and they just changed their khaki shirts and put on a coloured shirt that they'd brought with them.
So we all piled off onto the tarmac and there were lots of khaki trousers and coloured shirts.
I served at the First Australian Field Hospital in Vũng Tàu Vietnam and I served from the 21st of May 1968 to the 21st of May 1969.
When I finished my training I worked in casualty at Box Hill Hospital, where I trained for quite a while. So I did have some trauma nursing before I actually started. But when I joined the Army, you had to you had a form, on the nursing side this was, and they asked you whether you were interested in the theater.
And for some unknown reason I ticked yes. And that's how I ended up as a Theatre Sister.
We had two surgical wards. We had two medical wards.
We had an intensive care unit and we had the theatre. And of course, you've got all the extra people around, you've got the cooks, you've got the Q store people,
Your helicopters came in and your patients were stretchered in. You never quite knew what you were getting in the way of trauma injuries.
We organised who was to be the first one in the theatre, the most severe. And then it went down the line It was busy, very busy, and of course the boys were very traumatised. Some of them very very ill and badly wounded.
Once they got in the chopper and knew they were coming to a hospital, I think that helped them tremendously. They felt secure I think, that they were going to be looked after. And they were.And they really were wonderful patients.
We did as a group of nurses, we had about six or seven of us and two Kiwis, two New Zealanders with us, we talked about things and and I think that was the way we decompressed a lot.
On the weekends, sometimes if we had a day, we used to go to the children's area that the nuns were running. And it was really good for my theatre techs too because a lot of them had family at home
It sort of lighten things up. They were away from the trauma and they were with kids and it was really good.
[White text on black background] Jan returned home from Vietnam on her 28th birthday.
[Jan Mccarthy] When we went to Vietnam, we had really no idea what we were going to. We had no briefing before we went and we had no briefing when we came home. We weren't debriefed.
I think it made me realise, you know, that one day at a time you never quite know what's coming around the corner. And I certainly, you know, if I hadnmy time over again, I'd do the same thing. It was an experience, certainly from a nursing point of view, you know, it was an experience you wouldn't get anywhere else.
But not only that, it was an experience... a life experience really.
In a way, you have your normal family and then you become within an army family.
It's amazing how you can walk into an area with soldiers, sailors or airmen, whatever and you very quickly, you’re back in an environment that you're aware of. It was a privilege to nurse them.
[White text on black background] Jan stayed in the military for the next 26 years, dedicating much of her career to training young nurses and medical staff for combat duty.
[Jan Mccarthy] I retired with senior rank so I had to make a lot of decisions and I had to send nurses to the Gulf War. It’s easier to go to war than to send other people.
End of transcript.
Updated