War hero Cam Baird would have refused Victoria Cross had he lived

Humble soldier Cameron Baird would have refused the Victoria Cross had he lived to have his say.

Victoria Cross recipient Cameron Baird near the frontline.

It’s been a decade since Cameron Baird died in the chaotic gunfight in Afghanistan that earned him a posthumous Victoria Cross and entry into the Australian Army’s most select club.

Yet here’s the thing: those who knew the unassuming soldier best remain convinced he would have refused the medal, with all of its life-changing trappings, had he survived.

How fitting then that his friends, family and comrades from the elite 2nd Commando Regiment will gather quietly in Sydney on Thursday to mark the 10th anniversary of Corporal Baird’s death and remember the brave, honourable man he was.

Official portrait of Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird

Especially when the shadow of another VC recipient, the disgraced Ben Roberts-Smith, looms so large over the special forces community of commandos and SAS, the tip of the spear in Australia’s longest war.

Only 96 Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross since it was first issued by the British in 1856, and just four are living: ­Roberts-Smith, fellow Afghanistan veterans Mark Donaldson and Daniel Keighran, and 90-year-old Vietnam stalwart Keith Payne.

Like Roberts-Smith, Baird was a giant of a man who stood 190.5cm and weighed in at 110kg. Otherwise, however, the VCs could not have gone to two more different soldiers.

Where Roberts-Smith cut a polarising figure in the SAS – fleshed out during the defamation case he launched against Nine Entertainment – Baird was reserved and thoughtful.

A Buddhist, he collected fine art in his spare time.

VC recipient Cameron Baird (L) with lifelong friend Chris Dyer, Picture – Supplied

Chris Dyer (L) and VC recipient Cameron Baird as boys. Picture – Supplied

Childhood friend Chris Dyer said Baird would have followed in the bootsteps of his dad, Doug, and played professional football had a shoulder injury not blown his chances in the AFL draft in 1999. Instead, he joined the army.

“When he was playing, I thought he’d win the Brownlow one day,” said Dyer, 41, citing the AFL’s best and fairest award.

“And when he went into the army, I thought he’d get the VC.

“Turned out he did – just not the way we wanted it to happen.”

No one was calmer or more dependable under fire. On the third of his four deployments to Afghanistan in 2007, he was put up for the Medal for Gallantry – ranked third behind the VC – after he went to the aid of a mortally wounded team member, drawing the Taliban’s fire and killing several insurgents in the process.

He accepted the decoration only after his mates prevailed on him to change his mind; he thought he had failed the stricken soldier. Take the medal for us, Cam, the others urged. So he did, reluctantly. “Cameron was a very moral and ethically grounded soldier,” said his then commanding officer, Brigadier Brett Chaloner.

The bearer party carries the casket of Corporal Cameron Baird during the Repatriation Ceremony held at RAAF Base Richmond on June 29, 2013. Picture: Jake Sims / Australian Defence Force.

An eerily similar scenario would play out on the day he earned the VC in 2013 to become the second-last of 41 Australians to die in Afghanistan.

His platoon was assaulting a fortified Taliban position in Ghawchak village in Uruzgan province when the leader of another fire team was hit. Baird did not hesitate. He charged the enemy to reach the wounded man, exposing himself to withering machinegun fire.

His rifle jammed, but he attacked again. And again. He was killed during a third, successful attempt to silence the Taliban guns.

Chaloner, now CO of the Army Reserve’s 13th Brigade in Perth, said Baird was such a humble man he would almost certainly have hesitated to take the VC.

Mr Dyer, who runs the charity Cam’s Cause to help Afghanistan veterans in memory of his friend, said the public needed to understand that returned soldiers lived with the costs of war service long after they returned home.

www.camscause.org