TRANSCRIPT: Partners of Vietnam Veterans Association Quilt

My name's Carol Doyle. I've been married to a Vietnam veteran for 57 years, 58 years in November.

My name is Margaret, when I met my husband I knew he was a veteran.

My name is Margaret Vella, and I'm married to a Vietnam veteran.

My name's Christine Burgess. My late husband was a Vietnam veteran. He passed away 15 years ago at the age of 62 from basically war related injuries. He was a TPI veteran, which is totally and permanently incapacitated. He had several mental health issues, which were quite difficult to deal with. A lot of people don't understand what it's like to be married to a veteran.

When they come home, they're not the same. As soon as he stepped off the plane I knew. I said, that's not my husband. That's not Vic. He was just so different. But back then, we didn't know what was wrong. He was hurting.

Partners of Veterans, I didn't know anything about until we started doing the quilt.

And one of the ladies that started the quilt project, Margaret Rehorn, she was the secretary of the Victorian Partners of Veterans, the state group, and she asked us to come to a meeting when she found out that we were all partners, wives, widows of veterans.

So we went to a meeting in the city at ANZAC House. And when we came back, we decided to start our own branch, Margaret Vella and I.

A lot of our ladies are friends, we didn't know anything about PVA, but we did do things through Department of Defence. So, Liz, Jay, organized for us to have a morning tea or a lunch at the Gamekeepers here in Melton. And there was a lot of ladies from different places come, but we only came as friends. We didn't know anything else, and we were sitting there. There's quite a few of us, having a cuppa. And someone came around with information on the quilt and she said, oh, there's this project that we're interested in starting. Margaret had got a grant to do it, and it was for any family members, wives, partners, sisters, that were interested in making a quilt, which was called “Peace-d with Love”.

The quilt is a coming together of the initial stages of Melton PVA, the uniting of women and sharing experiences, tough experiences that they had been through, with their husbands to tell the story.

The idea for a square was our own. There's a big. I did a big sun. And an army truck. Actually I drew one, and I showed Carol, and she goes , “Oh Margaret”, I said I can't draw. She said, I'll get Joe to do it for you. So he drew the outline and I cut it out. And I think I'll put a badge on there. He needed sunshine in his life. Vic was, Vic would have been happy.

He was happy just to wallow in his own. Self, you know?

My husband was going to counselling, And he said to Joe, my husband, I want you to pick all these magnets that mean something to you. So my husband goes and gets the magnets, and all his magnets are dark and dim and death skulls and all that sort of thing. Very depressing things. And then he said, Carol, I want you to pick one. Well, mine are all flowers and happy things and everything. And, one of the ones my husband picked. Was a lighthouse. And he said, why did you pick that Joe? And he said, because to show Carol lights the way. So the significance of our square, people think it's just us as a couple going fishing because it's got fishing, us fishing on the bank. But it's not. It means a lot to us.

I made the square because a lot of the ladies couldn't be in it. So I made the badge to signify all the men. And that's what my my badge is all about. Wasn't just for my husband, it was for all the people there. That went to Vietnam. And some of them didn't come back, and some of them came back and were a mess. That's why.

If we could have a quilt every year, we would because we all sort of, you know, we were, part of the group that the men couldn't come into. So it was it was good. We talked, we laughed, we joked, we had our cries. We did everything.

Vietnam was 50 years ago. But it's not a forgotten war for the families, the wives, the children of the husbands who are suffering and who are still alive. God bless those that have passed. They're now at peace. The trauma, suffering, physical and mental suffering that they go through, it's very difficult for them. And it's just as difficult for the wives. And the coming together and being able to share their love of craft and uniting as one. It's Peace-d with Love, but it's love for their husbands, their families. Its also love for the rest of the veterans wives as well.

It's a beautiful quilt and I myself, like I said, I am very proud of what they have done.

I'm grateful that it's been restored. And it's something that when I'm gone, other people can come and have a look at family members have got somewhere and they can understand the stories. Well, I'm very, very, very happy because the library did so much work and the background stories. They didn't just take the quilt and hang it up, they were interested in us as partners of veterans. What you go through being married to a veteran. And it's there for everybody to see. And I keep saying it's magic and it is magical.

It's got, an aura about it being a textile. You can still feel the love that was put into it when the girls were making the squares. Lot of tears, a lot of heartache. A lot of things went wrong. But in the end, it got done. And it's just magical.

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