Guns and Brooches

This study investigates the contradictions, paradoxes and anomalies which have arisen for those assigned the role of army nurse. Financial discrimination against them as women in a men's organization has seen the female captain in charge of an operating theatre in Vietnam being paid less than a male corporal working with her. The text relates how guns have replaced brooches as part of the nurses' uniform, as "total war" increasingly makes a mockery of the distinction between non-combatants and combatants. Army nurses have paid heavy personal costs for their experiences. Jan Bassett draws upon their words and photographs to consider the profound impact of war upon four generations of Australian women.