Rogue Digger gun for hire
A DECORATED former Special Forces soldier has revealed his Afghanistan deployment was so dull and poorly supervised he was able to effectively go rogue and join foreign armies for Taliban kill missions.
The ADF and Department of Defence has launched an inquiry into the extraordinary admissions the former 2nd Commando Regiment Warrant Officer — known as “H” — made in a podcast series in which he reveals the lengths he went to take his war off the books. His recordings provide rare insight into the Special Forces at a time when they are under federal scrutiny for potential war crimes.
Among his claims was how when he arrived in Afghanistan with the ADF he purchased a phone and a laptop on the black market and created a Hotmail account specifically to spruik for in-country foreign force missions.
He details, on the popular Life on the Line military veterans podcast series, how he then fudged his way into coalition operational security briefings and went on unsanctioned Australian missions with counterpart forces including from Italy, Germany, Canada and local Afghanis, for up to three weeks in the month.
The now Queenslandbased former soldier would disappear for days on these other missions such was, according to him, the lack of ADF and 2 Commando direction and “very, very little supervision” during that 2008 deployment.
According to H, the now head of army Lieutenant General Rick Burr, a commander in Afghanistan at the time, eventually discovered his ventures by accident when foreign forces asked for more Aussie troops like “H”.
“No one knew really what I was doing and it wasn’t in the traditional sense properly authorised or waved with some wand from above … I got a bit of a kick in the a--e over it but nothing really happened,” he said, conceding he was as addicted to combat as a drug.
The ADF confirmed it was aware of the podcast and a separate investigation was under way into the claims.
“Defence was not aware of, and does not condone, the alleged behaviours and actions described by the interviewee,” a Defence spokesman said.