4 Field Regiment (SVN) 'Old Boys' Newsletter - September 2021 Edition

wonderful Christmas and that 2021 brings them much joy. All the best and thanks again cheers, John Derbyshire ___________________________________ From Tim Ford Hi Bruce, (It’s ok Tim – I get called Bruce all the time. In fact, my ‘nickname in Melbourne was “Don’t call me Bruce”. All in good humour of course. I’m sure it was Moe Armstrong who initiated calling me ‘Brucie’.) Great newsletter - thanks you! For information, the Cutler Research Centre at North Fort has two copies of “The Broken Eighth”. We can provide extract if requested. Also your readers would like to know the AMW is now fine - no real damage and the full restoration being undertaken this year is now complete - all the plaques on the Monuments are now metal. The area is still shut as the SHFT is still clearing the various trails but I’ll try to get a photo to send to you ASAP. Cheers Tim +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From Gabby Hayes on 14 Dec Pete, Sorted out the accounts as follows: Term Deposit has been rolled over for 12 Months (Best interest) until 14 Dec 2021. Total rolled over $6259.21. Everyday currently has $998.69. Gabby +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The following is an OPINION by Andrew Hastie MP/ex-SAS – on the Brereton Inquiry. I picked it up in Paul Dickson’s Locators newsletter “Eyes and Ears”. Apparently, the original was published in Contact – Air Land and Sea https://www.contactairlandandsea.com Red rocky earth cut into our flesh, numbing our hands. It was well after midnight, perhaps 3am. Floodlights lit up the group. Cadence push-ups on bleeding knuckles in the dead of night is the sort of misery that either consumes you, or clarifies your sense of mission. Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, fresh back from the Battle of Tizak, towered over us, the 25 officer candidates on the 2010 SASR selection course. His displeasure writ large in his menacing body language. He switched out our hand position from palms down to knuckles. ‘You f—ing officers. You always take the easy option. Lower. Hold.’ An eternity passed as our fatigued muscles trembled close to the ground. ‘Raise!’ The irony might have been lost on him, but not on me. Humbling myself before Ben Roberts-Smith was not easy. Nor would be serving in the Special Air Service Regiment in the weeks, months and years ahead. SASR selection is an exacting experience. For an officer, your command, leadership and character is closely scrutinised for 21 days. They break down your body to see who you really are—what you are like when you’re tired, hungry and dejected. Moments like this over the following fortnight thinned the ranks of officers. Men, gifted in command and planning, departed on their own terms—withdrawing quietly. Others were removed by the Directing Staff. The rest of us pressed on, reaching a point of insanity in the final week. No food for days, almost no sleep, impossible physical tasks. What was the point of it all? The last week posed this question for those candidates remaining: when there is nothing left to give—who can go beyond and finish the mission? For the first time I understood Clausewitz’s dictum that war is a contest of wills. Finish the job, or fail.