Target Practice

The Main Event

Snapshot

6 SAS soldiers walking around a remote sandy village in Afghanistan.

Our mission was to just collect a man that had possible links to the Taliban. That was all, nothing more, but I witnessed cold-blooded murder that day. As we moved towards a large building, which we suspected was the target's residence, we saw an Afghan man leave the building.

"I think that's out target. Let's head in and collect him," whispered the commander.

We slowly moved in, everything felt fine, but then I sensed the mood change. I just thought it was nerves since I was new and it was an important mission, but now looking back I realise that I felt the anger in the group and the urge to kill. When we got within 20-30 meters from him, he threw down his phone and just like he was struck by a spell, he put his hands up and stood perfectly still. The commander told us where to place ourselves and he ordered an elite group member to handcuff the man. This would turn out to be a critical error on the commander's part.

When the commander left the vicinity, I heard an AR-15 magazine click into place. I spun my body around to face the target and saw that the elite member had his AR-15 pointed at the Afghan man's head. I focussed on the face of the afghan man. I expected him to be petrified, but it was not that way. He appeared resigned to his fate. It made me wonder if we had a reputation for being cold-blooded murderers.

Bang!

I jumped. The bullet sliced straight through the man's head with ease like it was pin through a balloon. My head started racing, "Did I just witness cold-blooded murder? What do I do? Do I just keep it quiet?" I stood there shaking. I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. A war crime had just occurred right in front of my eyes. It was like target practice for the soldier. I looked around to see what the other soldiers were doing. I was disturbed that they appeared unmoved.

A minute after the shooting, the commander came to check on us. When he saw me standing still as if frozen in time, he shouted "Chapman! Go do your job! Search through the man's pockets. See if there is any useful information."
I jumped at the sound of his raspy voice, but I remembered that I had to respond. I had no choice. I stuttered "Sir... yes... sir..."
"Do you have a problem with my orders, Chapman!"
I shook my head and responded "No, sir, no!"

Just as I responded, another Australian patrol with an assault dog arrived at the scene.
As I went to search the pockets of the man, the dog handler let the dog off of the leash. He then ordered it to seek out any non-soldiers around. Instead of going to check if there were any other people around, he ran straight for the bloody head of the deceased man. The dog then started to chew the bloody head of the man who'd been shot. I felt the burning hot acidic vomit slowly rising up my dry throat. I tried my best to keep it down but the longer it stayed in my throat, the more it burned, the more I wanted to let it go no matter the embarrassment.

I looked to the dog handler disgusted and struggled to say, "Can you get this thing away from it?"

"Oh, let him have a taste," the handler responded seriously.

The acidic vomit escaped my mouth and covered the ground. The acts disgusted me and that's when I decided to speak out.