Tracy Smart

The rolling hills and beauty of Kangarilla on a farm steeped in family history would normally keep a resident locked into a life in that idyllic location, but not Tracy Smart.

Her father was a “Nasho” and her Mum’s brother a Wellington pilot during World War II and because of that she always had an attraction to joining the military, originally with the Navy.

In the late 1970s women still couldn’t go to sea so Tracy decided on a medical career. At medical school she mixed with other undergraduates and discovered they had joined the Air Force.

A child of the 1960s Tracy was a “space nut” and the idea of aerospace medicine held an enormous appeal.

Air Vice-Marshal Tracy Smart AO rose to become the Surgeon-General of the ADF and Commander of the Joint Health Unit.

“It’s a very different life from that I led in Kangarilla where I picked grapes for 50 cents a bucket, jumped into wool bale boxes to press the wool and helped Dad with our sheep,” Air Vice-Marshal Smart said.

“As Surgeon-General I was the senior doctor in the ADF and also provided strategic health advice to Defence and the Government,” she said.

AVM Smart transferred to the Defence Reserve Force in March 2020 after more than 34 years exemplary service to the Royal Australian Air Force and the ADF.

In an eventful life of service AVM Smart even had her “space nut” passion satisfied when she the opportunity to meet Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon.

But her most challenging experiences did not revolve around aerospace medicine. They came when AVM Smart deployed to the United Nations Peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in 1995, investigated, as medical officer, the F-111 accident on Pulau Aur, Malaysia in 1999, and tragically endured the loss of three of her devoted medical staff in the Sea King accident on Nias Island in 2005.

“Most of our work in Rwanda was humanitarian work and this prepared me for the work I did later in Timor Leste where as Chief Health Officer with the UN Peacekeeping Force I worked with the emerging Timorese health service,” AVM Smart said.

“While I was crowned karaoke Queen of Dili when in Timor Leste, these days are a little more relaxed with my hobbies of watching cricket, travelling, keeping fit and keeping my very special connection with South Australia by following my AFL team the Adelaide Crows.

“I also do occasional volunteer work, including with OzHarvest,” she said.

Air Vice-Marshal Smart’s illustrious career also saw her deploy to the Middle East, to Lebanon to assist in the evacuation in 2006, co-ordinate Air Force Health responses for Operations Bali Assist 2, Pakistan Assist, Sumatra Assist 1 and 2, and support the relief efforts in the Solomon Islands after the 2007 earthquake and tsunami.