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

reporters to see their soldiers at war. However, we stage-managed Australia’s contribution to Afghanistan through a carefully crafted information operation. This approach stifled public interest reporting. Perhaps with greater access for the Australian media, some of the events alleged by the Brereton Report might never have happened. Third, parliamentary scrutiny of Defence is broken and needs fixing. Politicians routinely visited Aussie troops in Tarin Kot. I first met Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop in 2009, on my first deployment with the 2nd Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force. I harangued a Labor MP in 2013 about Defence budget cuts when he visited the Special Operations Task Group. Each of them were interested and supportive, but it seemed they didn’t know what questions to ask. I now realise this is partly a function of a deficient Parliamentary Committee system. There is no independent Joint Defence Committee where tough questions can be asked in a classified, protected space. Parliamentary scrutiny these days is surface level. It amounts to senior Defence leadership presenting a few PowerPoint slides and giving parliamentarians a pat on the head. This is an area of urgent reform. If we are serious about increased accountability and transparency, then we need proper parliamentary scrutiny of the Department of Defence and the Australian Defence Force. Without it, our parliament can’t exercise proper civilian oversight of our military. Fourth, the Brereton Report rightly condemns a warrior culture that fused ‘military excellence with ego, entitlement and exceptionalism’. Sometimes SASR operators carried themselves like modern incarnations of Achilles, Thor or Mars. I reject that culture, too. But I believe a warrior culture is an important part of an elite combat unit. It all depends on the beliefs and values you build that culture on. When I posted to SASR as a non-qualified Captain in January 2010, I was befriended by the Unit Chaplain, a bloke by the initials of SB. He had an Irish temperament and liked to box, often with the operators. He was refreshingly confrontational, not a social worker in uniform. SB confronted what he called a ‘pagan warrior ethos’, shorn of any connection to the Just War tradition that has shaped our approach to warfare. As Saint Augustine wrote near the end of the Roman Empire, we must: “In waging war, cherish the spirit of a peacemaker, that by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them back to the advantages of peace.” Our boxing chaplain was right. The warrior ethos I sometimes saw was about power, ego and self-adulation. It worshipped war itself. It was the opposite of the humility that I expected to find at SASR. But there was a competing, more positive warrior culture at SASR, it just wasn’t the prevailing one at the time. If you looked closely, you’d find humble, quiet operators. Tough as nails. Fiercely competitive. Supremely competent at arms. The sort of bloke that you’d want next to you in a gunfight. They never thought themselves bigger than the team or the mission. They were humble. They were committed to truth. They were the ones who blew the whistle and repudiated the dark toxic personalities that have shamed the SASR in Afghanistan. Many are still serving quietly in the shadows. So, before people cry for a repudiation of all warrior culture, they should first understand what you need in an elite special operations unit. You need people who run to the sound of the guns. Who are prepared to fight and destroy Australia’s enemies? Who will die doing so, if necessary? Those men exist. They are serving at present. They have done nothing wrong. We need to uphold them and their vital mission. They will not be helped by soulless modern cultural theory, derived from the academic ivory tower. It may well diminish our effectiveness if shoe-horned and institutionalised. Fifth, in the hierarchy of virtues, moral courage remains paramount to physical courage. The public record doesn’t reflect this as our military honours and awards system preferences the recognition of physical courage. Acts of conscience are hard to write up in vigorous prose and people rarely thank leaders who make unpopular decisions. Yet there were acts of command moral courage during the period investigated by the Brereton Inquiry. History won’t record these good deeds the way it will the battlefield