Afghanistan: Standing Up, Not Shooting: The 'Compassionate Psychopaths' of Australia's SAS by Chris Masters and Nick McKenzie - Sydney Morning Herald
In 2002, an Australian Special Forces guerrilla warfare patrol crouching in a hide in Afghanistan caught sight of a group of armed men moving towards them.
The soldiers from 3 Squadron, Special Air Services Regiment (SASR) brought weapons to their shoulders and unlocked safety catches with fingers curled on triggers as the Afghans loomed closer.
And then, to the surprise and perhaps disappointment of some of his men, their troop captain laid down his rifle and stood fully upright. The approaching Afghans hesitated but also lowered their weapons, to then move off in a different direction.
Well-schooled in the tenets of modern warfare, the captain knew that a man with a gun in Afghanistan was not necessarily an enemy and that taking lives was not the point of his mission.
Former SASR Regimental Sergeant Major Cole Busby, who was on the same deployment, later told the Australian War Memorial: "It’s funny that our whole honours and awards system has been focused on how well people perform under fire, but unfortunately you’ve made a mistake to even be in contact nine times out of 10.
"I personally take pride in the fact that I led patrols that went undetected and without contact and we worked with the locals and developed intelligence that was valuable down the track."
Fast-forward 10 years and a rogue SASR patrol have taken to posting a kill board on their door.
According to a range of sources, on one mission a local Afghan man was bound, led to a steep incline, kicked over the edge and executed. Across some rough edges of the regiment, guiding principles were, for a time, abandoned.
A traditional role of applying and gathering intelligence had been displaced by a lust for kill counts…