Sister Margaret Ahern, army nurse

Barrie Gillman’s photograph of Australian army nurse Lieutenant Margaret Ahern is one of the most widely circulated from the Vietnam War. It was reproduced in many Australian newspapers soon after it was taken in June 1967, and three decades later it was etched into the Australian Service Nurses National Memorial, designed by Robin Moorhouse, on Anzac Parade, Canberra.
Ahern was one of the first army nurses to go to Vietnam, serving with the 8th Field Ambulance at Vung Tau during 1967–68. As part of a public relations exercise undertaken a month after she arrived in Vietnam in May 1967, Ahern and her fellow nurses distributed gifts to children at an orphanage in the village of Hoa Long.