Good evening Prime Minister, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am honoured to be here today, to present five artefacts that expose the overlooked Australian army nurse experiences. These five artefacts must be included in the Australian War Memorial as they move beyond Charles Bean 's conventional Anzac Legend and display a different perspective of the Great War experiences. They reveal that nurses endured chauvinistic constraints, traumatic conditions and perpetual anguishing impacts on their lives.
Over two thousand two hundred Australian civilian nurses volunteered to serve as army nurses in World War 1. These nurses constantly cleaned, bandaged and consoled hundreds of patients whom had ghastly wounds or were suffering from dreadful diseases.
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Australian army nurses were not treated the same as men as they were fallaciously thought as inferior, unintelligent and weak. Furthermore, most men were against women working at war. Whilst obscure, this harsh mistreatment left a significant impact on the Australian army nurses ' lives as they eternally felt oppressed, undesirable and endured low self-esteem. Therefore it is crucial to add this artefact in in the Australian War Memorial so the vile discrimination Australian army nurses endured can be recognised by many.
This image illustrates Australian army nurses conducting an operation on a grievously injured soldier. It importantly reveals that Australian army nurses would have seen soldiers in their worst devastating states, which permanently afflicted their lives. Thus, this artefact extends our understanding of the impact the war left on Australians and must be encompassed among these walls. It shows that Australian army nurses would have eternally lived in dismay and anguish from the countless ghastly sights they
At the outbreak of World War I, Lucy Paignton-Fox enlists in the Australian Army Nursing Service and leaves her family’s cattle station in the Northern Territory to join the war effort. During the Gallipoli campaign she serves in hospitals in Egypt, but when the Anzacs are posted to France she moves with them. A talented and spirited nurse, with dreams of one day becoming a doctor, Lucy finds more opportunities than she ever imagined: working alongside doctors and surgeons, sharing the soldiers’ dangers, helping them through their pain, and making lifelong friends. But with war comes suffering.
This extends to going to war. Shaun Tan and Gary Crew’s ‘Memorial’ represents how the bonds of friendship have led Australians into the most horrific of circumstances. The tree in the book embodies the memories of soldiers of past. It represents three generations of war in which Australia has fought and remembering the fallen comrades that died in battle. The book demonstrates an image of patriotism within Australia.
Intro: Between 1914 and 1918, Australia’s involvement in the war changed many lives of people from all different ranks, on the battle grounds and the family’s back home in Australia. It had a great impact on Australia as a country, soldiers, family’s, nurses or other personnel’s, however when the guns fell silent in 1918 it did not end there, instead it continued on for years. When soldiers returned to their homes they suffered from their mental or physical problems as a result of the war. For example, soldiers affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD often deal with trauma as a result of the combat, they often suffer with nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty with sleeping which can impact their daily life. The war also had a great
The Anzac Spirit is a concept that suggests that Australian and New Zealand soldiers’ possess shared
The North Vietnamese found a new and healthy respect for the Australians. The very act of survival by D Coy confirmed the validity of the training Australians received. It was a concrete validation that the Australian tactics were effective, life-saving and not as familiar to the North Vietnamese as some had thought.
The role nurses played during the Civil War was truly an extensive one, as the war carried the most casualties in American history and so many more injuries. Despite their invaluable work, though, their experiences have not been related in depth. Civil War Nurse: The Diary and Letters of Hannah Ropes by Joseph Brumgardt is a much-desired addition to the primary collection depicting the story of the United States medical corps during the Civil War. The book’s thesis claims that these men and women who served in the medical end of the conflict deserve attention as full participants in the war rather than as mere helpers of the main actors, more interesting than substantial. As evidence of this, the book focuses on the story of Hannah Ropes, who
During the war, Australia adopted a period of censorship, preventing information falling onto the enemy’s hands but also depriving citizens of news. In World War II, women were actively recruited into jobs that had always been for men. At home women had to deal with: loss of loved ones, managing children, family’s responsibilities alone and shortages of resources. Women were scene to have skills that could contribute to the war effort, for example Rationing and shortages meant that
Australia’s response to the returned soldiers was neglectful, ignorant and highly ineffective. As described by author Christina Twomey, ‘Some of the files I’ve seen, where the man’s a patient at a repatriation hospital, he’s been admitted for having a nervous breakdown, unable to continue employment, problems with alcohol—the full picture—sometimes psychiatrists write on the report and say, “I suspect this man is angling for a full pension.”’ This is just one snapshot of the way in which we treated returned soldiers. This countries celebrations and commemorations towards the Gallipoli Campange gives no mention of the hardships of the returned service men and women and their families, it completely turns a blind eye to the trauma that these men suffered even once they’d returned. ANZAC was no victory but a colossally badly managed event that tore families apart and left wives alone with little to no source of
Every hospital matron was allocated ten nurses to help the sick and wounded soldiers. The surgeons performed most the skilled medical tasks. The nurses helped in bathing the patients, feeding them, emptying the chamber pots, cooking, cleaning the wards and other custodial works. In the course of the duty, these women nurses always came up with new inventions for treating the soldiers (Perica 8).
Approaching the end of the 1915, Australian experienced a leadership change. The prime minister at that time, William Hughes was a support of Conscription. Conscription means a compulsory enlistment for state service, typically into the armed forces ( the army ). However, the majority of people in the Labor Party did not support conscription and therefore caused conflict.
Not only the war had a massive effect on the Indigenous in Australia, The war was a huge boom to the Australian economy and as it turned out another massive factor. As many Australian fundamental products were purchased as could be produced, and secondary, subsidiary industries manufactured many ‘modern’ items for the services. Many men and women retired and fled their careers to accompany the armed forces leading to a ‘deficit’ of labour. New commerce and businesses need to have been created to fund the troops with combat weapons, uniforms and ammunition. Scarce goods needed to be controlled by the Australian Government in enhancing better buying and selling and in ensuring that everyone received a fair share.
This source on the ‘Australians Women Land Party’ represents the fact that some women were extremely keen to take on the jobs of men to help out the country. The impacts of these actions to cement the changing roles of women has demonstrated high efficacy, with modern results proving that women contribute to an important and large sector of the workforce. Despite the fact women were paid lower than men and were expected to leave their job and return to normal duties after the war, World War II - which created a sudden absence of men, has shown Australia just how important the recruitment and employment of women
Many became nurses, a role that prevailed from aiding the heavily injured men from war. “…female nurses did mostly custodial work, feeding and bathing patients, emptying chamberpots, cleaning hospital wards and occasionally cooking” (Brooks 2013, para. 7). Nursing allowed women to obtain a better sense of their well-being. It expanded their usefulness, emphasizing recognition upon their gender role. Among the roles in the war, the majority were “cooks, maids, laundresses, water bearers and seamstresses for the army” (Brooks 2013, para. 16).
In the short story “The Sniper”, Liam O’Flaherty describes the hardships soldiers go through on a daily basis, he explains how important it is to understand the significance of doing what one has to do to survive in a war setting. Similar to the saying “kill or be killed”, a soldier has to disregard their emotions and do things to protect their country that can be detrimental to their social skills, and their overall ability to function normally in society post-war. The way soldiers behave in crisis’ situations can lead to the pernicious well-being of many bystanders and civilians at or near the war site. The author experienced these feelings first hand when he participated in World War I, while his short story takes place in Dublin during the Irish
The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.