War crimes report: ‘Don’t strip my dead son’s award from us’, says Afghan veteran’s father

The father of a commando killed in ­Afghanistan, awarded a meritorious service award, says Angus Campbell can ‘collect it from my son’s gravestone’.

Gregory Michael Sher, who died in a Taliban rocket attack in 2009.

The father of a commando killed by a Taliban rocket attack in ­Afghanistan says if the Chief of Defence Force Angus Campbell wants to revoke his son’s meritorious service award, he can ­“collect it himself from my son’s gravestone”.

Felix Solomon Sher, the father of Private Gregory Michael Sher, wrote to General Campbell urging him to reconsider his decision to strip the Meritorious Unit Citation from 3000 special forces task group members to reflect their “collective responsibility” for alleged war crimes committed by 25 soldiers.

But General Campbell said the decision had been made and would not be reversed.

Amid growing anger in the special forces community, preparations are under way for an ­online petition protesting the decision to be presented to federal parliament.

It also emerged the government set the wheels in motion to strip the citation from special ­forces members who served in ­Afghanistan five months ago — before Defence had even seen the Brereton war crimes report.

The Certificate for Meritorious Unit Citation for Gregory Sher, who died in a Taliban rocket attack in Uruzgan province in 2009.

Private Sher, a reservist from the untarnished 1st Commando Regiment, was killed at a forward operating base in Oruzgan province in January 2009, well before the majority of alleged war crimes identified by NSW Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton in his four-year inquiry.

Mr Sher keeps his son’s Meritorious Unit Citation in a framed display above the insignia that soldiers wear on the right side of their chest.

“If he wants it back, he can come and collect it himself from my son’s gravestone,” Mr Sher told The Australian.

Mr Sher’s letter, co-written with Ray Palmer, whose son ­Private Scott Travis Palmer was killed in Afghanistan in a June 2010 helicopter crash, asked ­General Campbell why 99.3 per cent of special forces soldiers who served in Afghanistan were being punished for the actions of just 0.7 per cent.

“Many will see this action as particularly unjust if commanders who were decorated for their command and leadership with distinguished service awards get to keep theirs, whilst junior soldiers lose theirs,” they wrote.

The decision was “a particularly brutal blow to the families of those who, like us, have lost someone in this war”.

“The mere act of removing a decoration from display cabinets is not one they should have to ­endure,” the fathers said.

A website has been set up by unnamed former special forces operators to collect names for a petition to “maintain the memory of our meritorious many”. It asks supporters to include their contact details so they can be sent the petition when it is ready to sign.

General Campbell announced last week he had accepted Justice Brereton’s recommendation that he request the Governor-General to revoke the Meritorious Unit Citation for all special forces task groups who served in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2013.

The government had been preparing for such a move, with Scott Morrison signing regulatory amendments published in the Government Gazette on July 13, 2020, clarify that the Governor-General may cancel the citation and the right to wear it, on the direction of the Defence Minister or the Chief of the Defence Force.

When the citation is erased, “each person shall return the insignia of a citation to the registrar”, the gazette says.

It makes no exceptions for citations and insignia awarded to those killed in action, raising the prospect that families of special operations soldiers killed in Afghanistan will have to hand the service badges back.

Lawyer and former RSL NSW president Glenn Kolomeitz, who was attached to the special operations task force in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010, said the move to revoke the citation was a “knee-jerk reaction by those who are supposed to be strategic leaders”.

“I’m happy to hand mine in as long as the senior leadership – who all got distinguished service medals for their leadership – hand back their awards,” he said.