Late September 1971. It had now been almost four days since I had been choppered into the 1st Australian Field Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds to my left shoulder. I was in a ward with two dozen other men from the 4th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, most of who had shrapnel wounds from enemy mortars or rocket propelled grenades. We didn’t know it then but we had been in the last major engagement by Australian forces in South Viet Nam. Our combat troops would be home by Christmas 1971.