They saw their mates die but never imagined they would face persecution for pursuing their killers. Now former elite Special Forces soldiers reveal the impact of war crime allegations.
Sky News host Erin Molan has called into question why anyone would be motivated to join the Australian Defence Force as letters are again sent to Special Forces Commanders informing them their medals may be stripped for alleged war crimes. “Before anyone has had allegations against them proven, the damaging headlines re-emerge regarding our men and women in uniform,” Ms Molan said. “Let me tell you, the absolutely appalling, clumsy, calamitous handling of this entire situation is the only proven crime so far.”
Since the Brereton report into alleged war crimes was released in 2020, a war of silence has largely existed around the 23 men directly accused of wrong doing and dozens more who served around them.
Only one man has been charged, briefs against two others are in preparation for the DPP and the rest have been living in limbo with regular Office of Special Investigator calls, visits, phone taps and offers of immunity inducements if they roll on others.
Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) members train at multi national base Tarin Kowt. Picture: Corporal Chris Moore
Now several of the former SAS have agreed to go public, agreeing to speak on condition of anonymity with details of what they went through from the Afghanistan battlefields to equally distressing lives since back home.
“We did hundreds of missions, some guys for almost 20 years, I did nine tours. It was the SAS out there, very few others went outside the wire, the Commandos also did some stuff up the valley,” one former soldier said.
“In 2011 and 2012 we stopped Australians getting killed, we shut down the guys making IEDs and Aussies lived because of that. We were getting shot at on every mission, we had mates die, we saw our mates die,” added another.
“A lot of people don’t realise what Afghanistan was like … none of the fighting was out in the desert, it was all in the Green Zone, where people lived, mostly in farmland. We were fighting guys who’d be farmers, and then they’d be Taliban, and then go back to being farmers. The Taliban bosses f**ked off to Pakistan and hid out there, we knew that, and then as soon as the Yanks f**ked off they came crawling back.”
Taliban fighters would drop their weapons and go back to being farmers when Australian Special Forces would engage. Picture: Supplied
Despite the challenges of fighting in a war zone with no clear frontline, the men claim the bureaucracy overseeing them did not allow them to take the upper hand.
“Hamid Karzai (The Afghan President) told the bosses that the villages were getting upset that we were doing night raids, the Yanks told them to f-off and they kept doing night raids; but our bosses did what Karzai said.
“So we were having to head off in full daylight and do missions that should have been done at night … They’d see our helicopters takeoff and know we were coming. It was like going into a boxing ring, one hand tied behind your back. We had to slip the Yanks a few cases of beer if we wanted support from their attack-helicopters … it wasn’t like Vietnam, they had everything there, we had nothing.”
A poster of President Hamid Karzai above an Aussie digger on patrol in the township of Merwais in southern Afghanistan. The president would complain about night operations on townships. Picture: Supplied
They believe justice delayed is justice denied, and the war crimes allegations have dragged out for years, hanging over the men as a constant source of stress. They revealed they had gone for government jobs in police, ASIO and Department of Foreign Affairs but with the spectre of being ex-Special Forces they get rejected before interview.
“The guy making many of the accusations wasn’t even one of us, he didn’t wear the Beret,” they said. “The investigators got to him and he said whatever they wanted … all of them they’ve never been in combat, they might have heard a Bullet tick by once … and then they’ll call PTSD. We were out there on hundreds of missions. And these (expletive) are telling us what happened out there … All of what was written was bull**it, every page … my ex-wife hasn’t spoken to me because of what these so called experts wrote. Lucky I still see my kids, they get me through it all.”
Special Operations Task Group welcome local Afghan government officials to a ‘shura’ (town meeting) to discuss security in the Gizab area of Uruzgan province, southern Afghanistan. Picture: Department of Defence
The ADF commanders who oversaw the SAS missions come in for particular criticism, as one of them said: “The Commanders, they were running things from over in Dubai, they weren’t even in Afghanistan, and they still all got medals … medals for sitting in Dubai, what a joke”.
“Most of the guys have now had to leave the SAS. One guy tried to stay, and they just pushed him to leave, now he’s really fu**ed up … Mate, you bounce around, it’s hard to take your skills from 20 years in the SAS and find a place for that after you’ve paid off.”
Last week it was revealed ADF chief General Angus Campbell did take action on commanders off the back of the Brereton report, writing to seven of them advising he had proposed they be stripped of their distinguished service medals related to their time in Afghanistan.