In the brutal, unforgiving landscape of Afghanistan, the lines between friend and foe were often indistinguishable – a reality Dean Burgess, an ex-Special Forces operator, knows intimately.
“You don’t really know from one minute to the next if they’re are friendly or not,” he explains, recalling a moment when he nearly opened fire on an old farmer who casually had an AK 47 slung over his shoulder.
His finger hovering over the trigger of his .50 calibre machine gun, he “all but pulled the trigger and blew this guy in half on a nursery patrol”.
This sobering close call was just one of countless moments that forged Burgess in a land where survival was a daily battle against both man and nature.
Afghanistan is the “graveyard of empires,” a place where “basically anybody that’s going there to fight a war has lost. Yeah. And we’re no different,” he said during an exclusive interview with news.com.au.
“The landscape is extreme, the temperatures extreme. Extremely hot, extremely cold in winter, minus 30 up in the mountains.”
Even waiting for a helicopter on the tarmac could mean enduring 45 to 50 degree stifling heat. But it was the mountains that truly tested them. “When you get up into those mountains, it’s really craggy, almost volcanic. So there’s nothing there that wants you to stay alive. Everything’s pretty much trying to kill you most of the time.”
This constant, visceral threat, coupled with the moral ambiguities of an asymmetric war without uniforms, shaped Burgess.
For over ten years since leaving the service in 2013, he has adhered to the unwritten code of the “quiet professionals”.
But now, as a father of four, he has emerged from the shadows, compelled by the public scrutiny surrounding the special forces communities, case and point being Ben Roberts-Smith and Oliver Schultz, and the approaching Anzac Day.
“I just would feel like a traitor to the Brotherhood if I didn’t,” he reiterates, the weight of his loyalty palpable.
“For us, the war hasn’t ended yet… Ben, Ollie, they are in a bit of a sh** jam right now, and I wouldn’t feel right if I just sat and did nothing about it.”
He speaks not to defend specific actions or comment in any way on the factual allegations levelled against Roberts-Smith, but to offer a rare glimpse into the impossible choices that can be made in the fog of war, wanting to make sure Australians understand the complex realities of war.
Burgess served in the Second Commando Regiment, his deployments to Afghanistan between 2008 and 2010 crossed over with theirs.
He recalls Roberts-Smith as “a pretty dominant figure,” even in non-combat settings.
“You try and do Brazilian jiu jitsu in a gym with 120 kilo man that’s six foot seven. You’ll find out very quickly how small you are,” he recounts, referring to their time at Camp Russell in Afghanistan.
When asked if he ever “tapped him out,” Burgess laughs, “Never.”
Despite his own self-confessed nature as “a bit too much of a larrikin to be promoted,” Burgess said Roberts-Smith would give his time to “young diggers including myself”.
Both Roberts-Smith and Schultz are now facing war crimes allegations. And while these high-profile arrests have brought the issue to the front of the news, he feels that “a witchhunt, my words, has been ongoing for many of the SASR guys since they were ordered inside the IGADF interview room” all those years ago.
“Men including Ben and Ollie have had their careers destroyed, their homes raided, phones bugged for almost a decade. They have lost employment opportunities because of their association with the unit, most have kids,” he said.
“The OSI has finished investigating the vast number of them yet decline to inform the affected men that the actions they took in the heat of battle up to 17 years ago are no longer under the microscope.
“They can then turn around and spend $310 million on a witch hunt to achieve nothing except for a couple of arrests, but don’t have the money to spend on ASIO staff to monitor known ISIS supporters AKA the Bondi shooters, where as we know 15 Australians were killed!”
The psychological toll on his special forces brothers in arms, he believes, is immense.
Watching this unfold has been “very much” tough on the brotherhood, leading to a sense of “distrust.”
Burgess, who grew up in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, joined the Army, was posted to 3RAR (Airborne Infantry) where he first deployed to IRAQ on SECDET 10 during the US led campaign – Operation Iraqi Freedom. Upon his return to Australia he successfully completed selection to be inducted into one of only two Australian Special Operations units.
Missions in Afghanistan were “heavily driven by high level intelligence,” ranging from “long range reconnaissance missions to direct action on compounds of interest targeting “high & medium value individuals”.
Targets could be “an IED maker, bomb facilitator, money launderer, insurgent fighters or a local mullah who was sympathetic to the Taliban.”
The blurred lines between combatant and civilian were a constant, deadly challenge. “Conventional warfare of the olden days… you’ve got a known enemy… it was a lot more professional and a cleaner war,” Burgess explains.
“With insurgency… you don’t really know from one minute to the next if they’re friendly.
Burgess points to a decision where we were mandated to start working with the Afghan army and Afghan police as a turning point for soldiers at war. Known as “Partner force operations.”
“Before that we owned the nights. Then all of a sudden we weren’t allowed anymore to do nighttime raids. That’s when you’ll notice, direct indication and spike of when, all the casualties started to mount and when the wheels started to fall off.”
This intense, high-stakes environment fostered a unique culture within the Special Operations Group.
“I particularly wouldn’t want anybody in my team that I didn’t trust with my own life. And vice versa,” he said.
“We’re all a bunch of alpha males, and that’s what you want,” he says, describing a “dog eat dog mentality” in training.
“You’re constantly trying to better yourself and sharpen that sword day in, day out.”
This relentless pursuit of excellence meant living at “extremely high levels” of awareness and stress. “There’s never really a time where you wind down.” Even off-duty, “it’s just about trying to maintain the rage all the time and be ready all the time.” A stay ready instead of the need to get ready mentality.
The unit operated on a “daily renewable contract,” a “meritocracy” where “just because you’re here doesn’t mean you get to rest on your laurels… if you don’t uphold our beliefs and our standards, you’ll be otherwise moved on.”
This demanding environment shaped him into a “problem solver,” someone who could “think on our feet and make split second decisions”.
Even now, as a father, he admits to being “pretty highly strung” and having “a lot of trouble accepting, subpar standards from society,” a direct legacy of his time in Special Forces.
Burgess’ disillusionment extends to the government’s treatment of its special forces soldiers. When young men ask him for advice about joining the Army, he now tells them to “go and get a trade.”
“You’re better off doing that because you get to go home to your wife and your kids or your family every night, because the government will send you overseas and they’ll make you do your job… And then when you do your job, you get dragged through the coals and you face potential life imprisonment when you come home for doing your job.”
He stresses that these deployments are not undertaken lightly or without high-level approval – “We’re talking from the Governor-General through to the captain on the ground.”
“Because we are so valuable as an asset class to the government. We are not allowed to leave the Australian shores without certain clearances given by the highest levels of government, so it’s not like it’s a guess that we’re going over and what we’ll be doing, they’re directing us to go over into it. But in the same sense, we don’t want to be scrutinized and in prison for it when we come home.”
As Anzac Day approaches, Burgess has a clear message for the Australian public. While acknowledging the potential for dissent, he urges unity and respect. “I encourage everybody to get out and show thanks to the veterans that have gone before us… And just because guys like myself have served in specialised units doesn’t mean anything to me personally. I’m here because of our forefathers who have gone before us.”
Regarding the controversy surrounding Roberts-Smith, he advises: “The best way you can show respect is by getting out, just being a good Aussie on Anzac Day, you know, don’t be a f***wit. Don’t… Don’t make it about yourself. Just remember what the day is about. And if you’ve got children, teach them. Teach them why we’re all here living in Australia, the best country in the world.”
