“I can say hand on my heart I don’t regret a single thing:” Ben Roberts Smith
West Australian schoolboy Ben Roberts Smith joined the army on November 11, 1996 after finishing high school and went to war in East Timor aged 20. He became a SASR member at age 24.
Ben said his early childhood grounding by his parents had always given him a good understanding of what is expected of a person and how you behave at the very highest level. “They have demonstrated that to me through their actions,” he stressed.
Ben’s father Len is a lawyer who was appointed a Supreme Court judge in Western Australia in 2000. The Honorable Len Roberts Smith RFD, QC later was nominated as Chairman, Defence Abuse Response Taskforce because of his position and standing in the Reserves.
The Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART), led by Major-General Len Roberts-Smith, eventually found 1,723 “plausible” complaints of sexual abuse at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), resulting in more than $60 million in “reparation” payments at a maximum of $50,000 per individual complainants. The final DART report in 2016 says a total of 133 complaints comprising 191 separate abuse allegations “that could constitute a criminal offence” were referred to state and territory police forces.
Similarly Ben’s dedicated mother Sue grew up in Papua New Guinea where her father was the last European Police Commissioner before Independence. Her family too had a long history of military members. Len Roberts Smith was the first public prosecutor in PNG after Independence.
Coming from a long family lineage of those serving their country Ben relished his newfound niche in the army. “We had a long history in the military and I grew up around family members talking about the service, Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.
“We had three direct family members who served in Gallipoli.”
He said he expected lots of action on the front line when deployed to East Timor in a peace-making capacity where he saw the SAS in action and remarked that was his destiny.
After listening to a smart, articulate former soldier such as Ben, whose years of strict family and military training taught him that every task in life had to be carried out correctly, beyond reproach, it is hard to imagine this capable soldier would have engaged in any unlawful activities such as killing five civilians in Afghanistan as alleged by the Office of Special Investigator attached to the Brereton Inquiry.
The Taliban, the recognised enemy of the Afghanistan war did not wear uniforms and every civilian was expected to assist their Muslim brothers engaged in guerilla warfare with American,Australian and Canadian forces.
Fifteen years later both Liberal and Labor governments want to scapegoat Australian soldiers who loyally served their country in order for western governments to surreptitiously preserve the status quo of the world’s largest, illicit opium producer.