Townsville Army medic 2024 Jonathan Church Good Soldiering Awards winner
A combat medic based at Lavarack Barracks has been named a recipient of an award named in honour of a soldier who perished in Townsville’s Black Hawk disaster.
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A combat medic based at Lavarack Barracks has been named a recipient of an award named in honour of a soldier who perished in Townsville’s 1996 Black Hawk disaster.
Lance Corporal Lachlan Goulding from the 4th Health Battalion based in Townsville was recognised for compassion in the Australian Army’s 2024 Jonathan Church Good Soldiering Awards.
His award citation credited his work re-establishing a hospital ward at Moem Barracks in Papua New Guinea in 2023.
During military exercises in Wewak, then Private Goulding selflessly seized the initiative to repair and sanitise the ward ready for patients.
“We faced a lot of challenges getting it back to an acceptable standard to treat patients, with having to re-establish electricity and plumbing and sanitise the wards to be clean enough for use as a medical facility,” he said.
“I am just trying to help people that need care: It’s a pretty surreal feeling knowing I have had an international impact on a country’s ability to provide health care.”
Lance Corporal Goulding was among five recipients of the award in 2024, named in honour of Trooper Church, a Special Air Service Regiment combat medic who was killed in the Black Hawk tragedy in 1996.
Among the five recipients of this year’s award was an Army soldier who can only be identified as Sergeant L.
She was recognised for her “profound strength of character and integrity, who has a reputation for always doing the right thing, even in challenging circumstances”.
She said receiving the Jonathan Church Good Soldiering Award held a special meaning.
“I work with people every day that knew Trooper Church, went to selection with him, served with him, and even someone that was on the helicopter crash that he died in.”
The collision between two helicopters claimed 18 lives; 15 from the SAS Regiment and three from the 5th Aviation Regiment.
The other award winners were Brisbane-based Private Caleb Walker for humanitarian work in Rwanda, Corporal Jordan Neal who provided life-saving CPR on an Aussie Rules umpire in Killarney Vale in NSW and Lieutenant Lachlan Mail for providing first aid stabilising two stabbing victims in Darwin.
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Originally published as Townsville Army medic 2024 Jonathan Church Good Soldiering Awards winner
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