Gary McKay

Experience what it was really like on patrol with Australian SAS in the jungles of Borneo and Viet Nam.On Patrol with the SAS takes the reader into the heart and soul of the men of the Australian Army's Special Air Services Regiment. It provides a clear insight into the rigours of the SAS selection process, training for war in Papua New Guinea, then in graphic and sometimes raw and brutal detail into combat behind enemy lines in Borneo and South Viet Nam.'It is an engrossing soldier's story. One in which the qualities of the men, their mental, physical and psychological toughness together with their superb battlecraft, essential for operating in small teams isolated in the enemy's backyard, emerge as the key components for their success in these two conflicts.' Brigadier Rod Curtis, AM, MC (Retd)'McKay has done what few other authors writing about the SAS achieve. He debunks the myths and lets the men who served in the Regiment tell it as it was. My children ask me what it was like to serve with the SAS in South Viet Nam: I will give them this book to read.' Brigadier Chris Roberts, AM, CSC

A traveller's guide to the Australian battlefields and cemeteries in Viet Nam written for people actually holidaying in Viet Nam as well as the wannabes who think they might go to Viet Nam.; Being there 30 years on, standing on the fields of conflict, it all came rushing back. The good bits and the bad bits. But it left me with a feeling of comradeship and pride. I was glad that I made the journey. In 1971 Gary McKay was an Australian platoon commander in what was then South Viet Nam and was seriously wounded in one of Australia s major battles of the Viet Nam War. In 2002 he returned to Viet Nam and retraced the steps of the men who had gone before and after him, from 1965 to the end of the war in 1972, in what was Australia s longest lasting war.Now, in this book, Gary McKay presents an essential guide to the battlefields in Viet Nam for today s traveller. He provides practical tips on how to get to each site, what to look for and how to avoid the pitfalls of journeying in Viet Nam. Along the way, he chronicles the major battles fought by the 1st Australian Task Force, accompanied by gripping narratives of the actions.Illustrated with photos and maps, this book is a must for Australian travellers to Viet Nam who want to learn more about the conflict that cost so many lives on both sides.

"Fires, accidents, earthquakes and floods - firefighters are never far from danger."--Cover, p.4.

Over 450 Australian civilian professionals volunteered and went to Vietnam during the war to help the civilian population. From October 1964 until the end of 1972, surgeons, nurses and other medical specialists from Australian hospitals volunteered to work in South Vietnam.