Australian women and the Vietnam War
A government policy against the expansion of communism in Asia resulted in Australia sending training advisers to South Vietnam in 1962. Australian combat troops were sent to Vietnam in 1965. Australia included conscripts in the troop numbers in 1966. A gradual withdrawal of Australian troops began in 1969, with the last troops leaving Vietnam in 1973.

About 210 Australian women went to Vietnam as civilian nurses, as part of volunteer medical teams. Forty-three Australian Army nurses served in Vietnam between 1966 and 1973. Service nurses also assisted in the evacuation of casualties back to Australia.

Five hundred and twenty one Australian service personnel are listed as having died during the Vietnam War. Barbara Black, an Australian nurse, was one of them.

I knew a Fishing Rod Maker/Weaver who started his military Career as a Sniper in Korea. He was friends with Rumsfeld later a SEC of Defense for the US. While there he decided he wanted to fly so he tranferred to Army Air Corp. His name was Art Durham and become very good at it. He was sent by our country to places like Sweden to teach Helicopter Tactics. He was asked by Schwarzkopf to come out of retirement to give his expertise for the First Gulf War. Now about Viet Nam. There was a valley that the Australians were encamped in. Art was dating one of the Female officers that he later married and settled in Texas. He said there was a MIG that regularly strafed the Australians in the valley so he decide to try to take it out. He had his Helicopter at the mouth of the valley waiting. He knew about how long it took to exit the valley after strafing the Australians and at the right time he started shooting rockets across the mouth of the valley and as history tells us he did hit the MIG, shooting it down. He said a Russian pilot was flying the MiG because he had the shoulder boards, Russian. That MiG I am told now is in a museum in Australia. Just sayin THE REST OF THE STORY, KERRY