“(Greg) and his wife Annie have a 20-hectare property near Bairnsdale, part of which they use as a ”safe, secure and peaceful retreat’ for Vietnam veterans and their wives. The men who come there are almost all ‘TPIs’ (they’re totally and permanently incapacitated) who, because they carry Vietnam-caused PTSD demons with them, have a range of emotional problems not dreamt of by most of us.

“For them, staying in a typical caravan park may be fraught with problems. So, for example, the retreat doesn’t allow children, not because anyone hates children but because it’s impossible to expect children to be quiet and because, for troubled Vietnam vets, sudden noises can set off all sorts of emotional alarms.

“When you’re a Vietnam vet, Carter counsels, that sudden caravan park noise at 2 in the morning that most of us will sleep through can plunge a troubled man back to the Vietnam of 1969 and 1970 ”with the back and the front of his mind playing games with each other”.

“And the retreat discourages casual visitors and has only veterans (and their wives) there because, Carter says, people who didn’t serve in Vietnam can sometimes, clodhoppingly, say the most insensitive and unsettling things.

“Carter is a PTSD sufferer himself (but says he’s blessed by being ”a very, very positive person” blessed with a wonderful and very positive wife) so is sensitised to the needs of those who retreat to the retreat.

“The point of the fund-raising calendar (the 2007 one raised $65,000) is to earn some money to spend on the retreat. It needs repairs and maintenance. Because the place is his private property it can’t attract any government money (he says that Veterans’ Affairs pats him on the back and says what wonderful work the retreat does but regrets it can’t help him financially), hence the need for dollar-generating enterprises such as the calendar.