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Alexander Blackman, better known as Marine A, | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
has been serving a life sentence for the murder | 0:00:06 | 0:00:08 | |
of a badly injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:12 | |
Get him out! | 0:00:12 | 0:00:13 | |
After a long appeal process, the judges now believe | 0:00:13 | 0:00:17 | |
he was suffering from a form of combat stress at the time, | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
and today have reduced his murder verdict to manslaughter. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
But now, as the former Royal Marine sergeant awaits resentencing, | 0:00:30 | 0:00:34 | |
there are aspects of this story that remain untold and unexplained. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:38 | |
I'm going to take you back to his battlefield... | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
..and into the mind of the men who served with Blackman. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:50 | |
It's the first time they've spoken publicly about the details | 0:00:51 | 0:00:55 | |
of what happened on that fateful day in 2011. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:59 | |
Everyone that was speaking on the radio was sending out | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
a signal to Al. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:04 | |
Everyone wanted that guy to be dead. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:08 | |
It was a bloody tough tour. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
For every individual man | 0:01:12 | 0:01:13 | |
there's a point at which he's had too much or seen too much | 0:01:13 | 0:01:18 | |
or he's too tired or he's too stressed, | 0:01:18 | 0:01:20 | |
and that's a fact for everybody. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:22 | |
I'm asking you straight, now, | 0:01:25 | 0:01:26 | |
would you think that what happened that day | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
was the only time that happened in the Afghan war? | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
No. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:34 | |
Her Majesty's Royal Marines have a proud history | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
that goes back over 350 years. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:58 | |
The battle honours are wide and varied. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:02 | |
They're the country's only dedicated commando force, | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
and always at the sharp end of combat in all the major conflicts. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:08 | |
So you can imagine the events of September 15th, 2011, | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
had a huge impact on the Royal Marines - | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
one of their own becoming the first British serviceman | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
to be convicted of murder on the battlefield. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
But as of today, murder is now manslaughter | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
on the grounds of diminished responsibility. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
Now, I've met Blackman several times and I've spoken to him in prison. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:34 | |
At first it seemed he was caught red-handed because, unknown to him, | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
the entire incident was filmed on another marine's helmet camera. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
Now, for legal reasons, most of this footage | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
you're not allowed to see, just hear. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
And I have to tell you, it's harrowing stuff. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:01 | |
Marines dragging a bloodied, | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
barely conscious enemy across a field, | 0:03:03 | 0:03:05 | |
discussion about whether to treat him as the rules of war | 0:03:05 | 0:03:08 | |
demanded that they should. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:10 | |
Some chat there about whether he was actually dead or not. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:16 | |
And at the time, at least two of the marines are brandishing | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
their pistols quite threateningly around the prone enemy fighter. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:22 | |
Then, quietly and deliberately, | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
one marine, Alexander Blackman, | 0:03:25 | 0:03:27 | |
steps forward and shoots the enemy in the chest at close range. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:30 | |
GUNSHOT | 0:03:30 | 0:03:31 | |
The insurgent contorts horribly and eventually dies. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:36 | |
It seemed like an open-and-shut case, | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
guilty as charged. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
But let's look beyond the pictures, | 0:03:55 | 0:03:57 | |
of the hidden story no helmet camera could ever have seen. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
Rob Driscoll fought alongside Alexander Blackman in Afghanistan, | 0:04:02 | 0:04:07 | |
on a tour of duty he will never forget. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
How has it been since Afghanistan? | 0:04:11 | 0:04:12 | |
Pretty tough, I'll be honest. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:15 | |
I've had my ups and downs. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:16 | |
Afghan, I think it's ultimately contributed | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
to the breakdown of my marriage. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
I think, physically, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
I suffered with anxiety and, you know, | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
it's only within the last couple of years, really, | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
that I've not suffered sleep-wise. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
So I think it had a huge, huge impact. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:39 | |
In many ways, for Driscoll, it was a tour from hell. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
That is why he put into storage anything and everything | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
that reminded him of that terrible time. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:49 | |
But then he told me he had something he wanted to show me. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
He said he might still have the radio logs | 0:04:52 | 0:04:54 | |
from the actual day of the killing. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:56 | |
No, it's not in there, Chris, | 0:04:58 | 0:04:59 | |
which means it's probably buried under there somewhere. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
Driscoll had not seen the logs for five years, | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
and probably thought he'd never need to see them again - | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
a handwritten record of radio messages, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
a sort of war diary, | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
and a tangible link to the battlefield | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
that might give us some clues to the lead-up to the day in question, | 0:05:20 | 0:05:24 | |
15th September, 2011. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
10th September, we were involved in a firefight, | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
11th of September, we were involved in a firefight. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:35 | |
Two firefights on 11th September. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
12th of September, a firefight. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
14th of September, we were in a firefight, and this was... | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
Grenades were thrown. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:44 | |
And actually, just talking about this, | 0:05:44 | 0:05:46 | |
I can feel, you know, my heart kind of, you know, | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
getting a little bit more how it would have been on the day. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
You can just kind of get a feel for the intensity. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
In 2011, Sergeant Rob Driscoll was part of 42 Commando, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
a 650-strong unit of Royal Marines, | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
deployed to one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
The year before in Helmand, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
a big military surge pushed through the district of Nad-e-Ali, | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
forcing the insurgents from south to north. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
And so it was here, in Nad-e-Ali North, | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
where the insurgency was concentrated | 0:06:22 | 0:06:24 | |
and at its most threatening, | 0:06:24 | 0:06:26 | |
that 42 Commando is deployed. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
650 men divided into four separate companies. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:32 | |
It was near the beginning of their six-month tour | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
that I myself embedded with 42 Commando as a film-maker. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
I'd worked many times in Afghanistan during the 13-year conflict, | 0:06:45 | 0:06:49 | |
but now, I was about to find out | 0:06:49 | 0:06:51 | |
that it had become a very different sort of war. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:54 | |
The insurgents' choice of weapon had become the IED - | 0:06:54 | 0:06:59 | |
improvised explosive devices hidden in the ground. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
Murderous, maiming and almost impossible to second-guess. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:06 | |
On the night I arrived in Camp Bastion, | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
the main British base, I was just in time to film | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
some of 42 Commando embark on a very dangerous mission. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
Right, fellas, start getting in your order. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:20 | |
These men were drawn from Juliet, or J Company. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:23 | |
This was Alexander Blackman's company. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
On the flatbed. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:27 | |
Now, he wasn't there that night, but he was staying back to help | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
defend his checkpoint from enemy attack. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
But these men, Blackman's comrades, | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
had been tasked to establish | 0:07:38 | 0:07:40 | |
a new British outpost deep in enemy territory. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:44 | |
I grabbed a last-minute interview | 0:07:44 | 0:07:46 | |
with Major Steve McCulley, officer commanding the J Company. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:51 | |
We'll take over the compound, | 0:07:51 | 0:07:52 | |
establish a temporary checkpoint, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
and then from there, | 0:07:54 | 0:07:55 | |
for a period of seven to ten days, | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
we'll conduct fighting patrols | 0:07:57 | 0:07:58 | |
and lure the insurgents into our location as best we can. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:02 | |
How are you feeling yourself? | 0:08:03 | 0:08:05 | |
Yeah, I mean, I'd be lying if I wasn't slightly apprehensive, | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
because, you know, it's a very cheeky operation. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
We're there to disrupt the insurgents, | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
and so it's a high level of risk. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:15 | |
But, you know, that's the name of the game, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
that's what we're in business for. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
Within a week, two marines and an interpreter had been killed | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
and several more marines had suffered life-changing injuries, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
including Steve McCulley himself. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:31 | |
Basically tore my chest apart - | 0:08:32 | 0:08:34 | |
ribs, lung, right lung, broken femur, patella, tibia. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:39 | |
They cut me open, split my rib cage and they dug out | 0:08:39 | 0:08:41 | |
as much shrapnel, body armour, clothing, mud, as they could. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:47 | |
Stapled me together, put me in an induced coma on a ventilator | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
and kind of thought, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:51 | |
"Well, we'll get him back to the UK and let them decide the best way, | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
"whether they take out the whole lung there and then or leave it." | 0:08:54 | 0:08:58 | |
So, again, yeah... | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
The emotional impact for Al Blackman, you know, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
it would have been horrific | 0:09:06 | 0:09:07 | |
sitting back | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
and getting that information fed, | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
drip-fed down the radio, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:13 | |
that people that you like, | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
you've drunk with, you've socialised with, | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
and, to an element, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
you probably love in a brotherly kind of way, | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
have been torn to shreds, you know, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
less than 4km away from where you are. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
They would've heard the blasts. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
They know that those deaths would've been fairly horrific. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
When you start losing guys, | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
whether they've been killed or injured, you know, it's... | 0:09:40 | 0:09:45 | |
Cohesion can be built or lost around those types of situations. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:51 | |
Thousands of people have been to Afghanistan, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
but there's just hundreds that have been involved | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
in fierce combat, and those hundreds, | 0:09:56 | 0:10:00 | |
it's the same guys over and over again. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:01 | |
Not only have they done it day in, day out, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:03 | |
they've done it on multiple tours. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:05 | |
I don't care what anyone says, | 0:10:05 | 0:10:06 | |
the more times you're subjected to those situations... | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
..you have to get harder, but the harder it is to deal with. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
Just days after J Company had sustained such serious casualties, | 0:10:18 | 0:10:22 | |
I flew in with the relieving company to the very outpost | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
that Steve McCulley's men had established at such great cost. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
His men returned to their bases close by. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
But it was here, | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
in what was described as the most dangerous square mile in the world, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
that I was to get a taste | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
of what this unforgiving war was like for these marines. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:48 | |
Patrols were sent out twice a day, without fail. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:51 | |
IEDs were everywhere. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:53 | |
So every footfall was a dice with death. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:56 | |
That's why the marines call patrolling "Afghan roulette". | 0:10:56 | 0:11:00 | |
And all this in 50 degrees of heat, | 0:11:00 | 0:11:02 | |
even more in the corn fields where we often took cover. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:06 | |
It's twice as hot as it is outside, | 0:11:06 | 0:11:08 | |
the heat is enclosed in here. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
And it's absolutely... | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
..unspeakably hot, sweltering. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:15 | |
Markers here. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
The marines were there primarily to help secure local villages | 0:11:20 | 0:11:24 | |
recently liberated from the Taliban. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
So whilst bomb disposal teams try to rid these villages of IEDs... | 0:11:26 | 0:11:30 | |
..the enemy had to be kept at bay. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:35 | |
And this was the job of the Royal Marines. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:37 | |
They went out to draw enemy fire. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
They were the bait, if you like. The lure. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
The red rag to the Taliban bull. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:45 | |
That's what it's all about. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:48 | |
Engaging them on our terms when they think they're OK. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
The key thing is to try and kill them if you get the chance, | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
that's the priority. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
And what did it feel like, then, | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
to be...well, effectively, human bait? | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
I think, initially, most of the marines were up for it | 0:12:01 | 0:12:04 | |
because it meant that we were going to get involved in the action. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:08 | |
We would start taking the fight to them | 0:12:08 | 0:12:09 | |
and therefore winning the insurgent, kind of, campaign. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:14 | |
I think we underestimated what kind of resistance | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
we were going to get when we arrived. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
Towards the latter end of the tour, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
there was a definite swing in opinion. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
There was an air of despondency | 0:12:24 | 0:12:25 | |
and perhaps feeling like we'd been left alone a little bit | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
and we were just walking around. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
And the expression, "Figure 11 targets", | 0:12:32 | 0:12:33 | |
"Walking figure 11 targets", | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
is what everyone thought they were, | 0:12:35 | 0:12:36 | |
which is a cardboard cut-out that we use on the ranges in the UK | 0:12:36 | 0:12:41 | |
when we're practising our fire and manoeuvre. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
-And that's what you felt like? -That's what everyone felt like. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
The insurgency pretty much controlled the ground, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
and seeded it with IEDs continually. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
In a six-month period in Nad-e-Ali North, | 0:12:56 | 0:13:00 | |
one IED was discovered | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
or detonated every 16 hours. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
Casualty rates for 42 Commando mounted. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:07 | |
Actions on contact IED. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
If you get an IED... self-treat yourself, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:19 | |
if you've got any arms and legs left. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
OK, I'll call in the helo, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
it should be at Bastion within 21 minutes or whatever, OK? | 0:13:23 | 0:13:27 | |
There's guys close. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:30 | |
RADIO CHATTER | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
An added pressure was the interception of Icom chatter, | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
that's the insurgents' radio communications. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
Helpful for intelligence... | 0:13:40 | 0:13:41 | |
They said, "Be ready for them. Don't let them go anywhere." | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
..but it could also be very destabilising. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
Taliban said they've seen the patrol now. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
-They've seen the patrol? -Yeah. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:52 | |
OK. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:53 | |
The marines could hear the insurgents plotting their attacks, | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
and it seemed they always had eyes on the British soldiers. | 0:13:56 | 0:14:00 | |
We've had more Icom, and they're saying be careful, all right? | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
XXX Anybody is PIDed, I want them taken out. Go. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:08 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
Yeah, lads. Fucking good shooting. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
And yet all the time the marines were braced for enemy attack, | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
they were having to try and win the battle for the hearts and minds | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
of the local population. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:25 | |
But also the marines had to work closely | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
with the Afghan security forces, | 0:14:33 | 0:14:35 | |
and that brought its own big problems. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
The main mission was to integrate and hand over | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
and let the Afghans lead the patrols. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:46 | |
But the way they did their business was very... | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
Not British. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:50 | |
The leverage that the Afghan applied onto the residents | 0:14:50 | 0:14:56 | |
was to place a 9mm pistol in a child's mouth. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
They would beat people, threaten to kill people, | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
cock their weapons at people, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
they would fire into the floor next to people. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:07 | |
I can remember one of my patrol gave a little girl a biscuit, | 0:15:07 | 0:15:12 | |
you know, walk up behind the little girl | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
and hit her on the back of the head with a rifle | 0:15:14 | 0:15:16 | |
so hard that she fell, rolled into the canal. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
What do you do with that, you know? | 0:15:19 | 0:15:20 | |
You can't challenge the behaviour, it's too complicated to address. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:24 | |
All I then have to do is restrain my soldiers | 0:15:24 | 0:15:26 | |
from attacking the people that we're partnering with. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:31 | |
It's...it's... | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
You know, I've got bigger issues to deal with. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:35 | |
It sounds horrific, but I've got bigger issues to deal with. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
Some of the marines think | 0:15:40 | 0:15:42 | |
that seeing such relentlessly brutal behaviour | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
might have skewed their own sense of right and wrong. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:50 | |
The days didn't finish with pistols being put in mouths, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
the days finished when we got back to the camp. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
And in-between that, I would see my friends blown to smithereens, | 0:15:56 | 0:16:00 | |
I would see other friends with horrific, life-changing injuries, | 0:16:00 | 0:16:04 | |
I would see young children come out to take photos of helicopters | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
and get shot, | 0:16:08 | 0:16:09 | |
I would see limbs hung in a tree, | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
I would be ambushed, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
I would see farmers killed, | 0:16:14 | 0:16:16 | |
I would see A&A beat a young man to death, | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
I would then fire and manoeuvre, under fire, 200 metres | 0:16:19 | 0:16:24 | |
and then get back to the CP. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:25 | |
You know, the days were horrific. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:30 | |
And there's a lifetime full of events | 0:16:30 | 0:16:33 | |
in one day to kind of rationalise, | 0:16:33 | 0:16:37 | |
analyse, self-criticise, | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
but I haven't got time for that, because the next day I'm going out | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
and repeating that exercise with the same kind of risks. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
Colonel Oliver Lee was commanding officer | 0:16:50 | 0:16:52 | |
of another Royal Marine unit in Nad-e-Ali South, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:56 | |
adjacent to 42 Commando in the north. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
His was a relatively benign area, | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
and although he never met Blackman | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
or personally visited his checkpoint, | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
he had become increasingly worried about the stresses on the men | 0:17:05 | 0:17:09 | |
in that pressure-cooker environment to his north. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
I was. I was worried indeed at a number of points. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
There are a series of factors that are common to something | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
very serious going wrong on the battlefield. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
It's a range of factors relating to adequacy or not of training, | 0:17:23 | 0:17:29 | |
of oversight, of leadership, | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
of cultural awareness, | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
to a sense in individuals or groups of individuals | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
of isolation or abandonment, | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
the loss of much-loved and talismanic colleagues, | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
a sense, as a result of that, of dehumanising the enemy. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:50 | |
Those are the sort of factors that sit at the heart | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
of these kind of disasters on the battlefield. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:57 | |
Some have reported on this, | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
suggesting that soldiers had gone rogue or feral. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
They are not words that I personally would choose, | 0:18:03 | 0:18:08 | |
but my observation that the manner in which operations | 0:18:08 | 0:18:12 | |
were being conducted there | 0:18:12 | 0:18:14 | |
was very far indeed from how I would have chosen it to be, | 0:18:14 | 0:18:18 | |
and, in my view, increased rather than decreased the likelihood | 0:18:18 | 0:18:23 | |
of a Sergeant Blackman-type event taking place. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
And I felt that those factors were, largely speaking, | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
factors that lay outside Sergeant Blackman's control. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
Were we feral? | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
You could... | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
I don't really know what we were at the end. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
I think we were just shell-shocked, if anything. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
I don't think feral is the right word, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:53 | |
it almost kind of implies some disregard for authority | 0:18:53 | 0:18:57 | |
and there was no disregard for authority. | 0:18:57 | 0:18:58 | |
We respected our HQ, to a degree, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
as much as any other soldier would on a front line. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
After that repetitive kind of exposure to violence | 0:19:04 | 0:19:10 | |
and different cultures, I'd changed. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
And it's taken a long time, | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
and I still think it's perhaps a process that's ongoing, | 0:19:16 | 0:19:21 | |
to get back to who I was before. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
Louis Nethercott, a young machine gunner | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
who worked closely with Alexander Blackman, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
does not accept that their standards dropped, | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
despite the pressures. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:33 | |
The routine and the soldiering and the standards were maintained | 0:19:33 | 0:19:37 | |
to the high level that they always are, | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
but personal feelings, I was just tired. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:45 | |
And I know the lads were as well. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
And, you know, we didn't have the numbers that we did initially, | 0:19:47 | 0:19:53 | |
so it's just, you know, it was just tough at that point, I think. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:57 | |
So were these the same pressures felt by Alexander Blackman | 0:19:59 | 0:20:03 | |
that, after six months in Nad-e-Ali North, | 0:20:03 | 0:20:06 | |
culminated in the day that was to become | 0:20:06 | 0:20:08 | |
the most infamous in the Afghan campaign? | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
On 15th September, we pushed out patrols early in the morning. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:17 | |
11 Lima is now going out, so this was my call sign. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
Literally, as soon as we walk out the door here at 7:05, | 0:20:20 | 0:20:24 | |
we've got five fighting-age males north of my location. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
It wasn't just our call sign that was involved, | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
there was lots of other patrols on the ground. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
Here, we can actually see some names - | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
Janati and Khales. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
I mean, this could well be the name of the guy that was killed. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:42 | |
"We've had some alcohol." | 0:20:44 | 0:20:46 | |
It was quite common that we'd pick up communications, | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
and a couple of times, when we arrested people, | 0:20:49 | 0:20:51 | |
they were under the influence of alcohol, | 0:20:51 | 0:20:53 | |
a lot of the time under opiates and what have you. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
But there was some other crazy drugs that they must have been taking. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
"We have shot the camp. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
"We have met the friends who gave us the little things." | 0:21:03 | 0:21:06 | |
The Taliban, they'd always have little code words. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:10 | |
And over time, we knew that "little things" were the grenades. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
This is all trigger communications for us on the ground. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
So we would have been quite ramped up | 0:21:16 | 0:21:18 | |
and quite worried about this. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:19 | |
When they start talking about more manpower | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
and using mobiles to communicate, | 0:21:22 | 0:21:24 | |
you can pretty much guarantee | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
that something bad is going to happen to someone. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
At 0700 on 15th September, 2011, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
Rob Driscoll set out with his multiple of about 15 men on patrol. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
He moved from his base at Checkpoint Daqhiqh | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
to check for IEDs that might have been seeded overnight | 0:21:41 | 0:21:45 | |
but then, from these compounds here, came under fire. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
Now, after a brief firefight, | 0:21:48 | 0:21:51 | |
he made a tactical withdrawal back to his checkpoint. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
But not long after that, a second patrol was attacked. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:57 | |
And that was when Sergeant Blackman and his men, | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
based down here at Checkpoint Omar, were ordered to investigate. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
About 1,000 metres to the north, they got to the compounds, | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
and there, they stormed them, but found nothing, | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
the enemy had fled. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:11 | |
He then started to return back to his checkpoint. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:15 | |
That was when he received intelligence | 0:22:15 | 0:22:17 | |
that the enemy was flanking him - in other words, | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
coming in from the other side, ready to attack. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:22 | |
That was when an Apache attack helicopter was called. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
Louis Nethercott was on Blackman's patrol. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
Two insurgents were positively identified, | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
had weapons systems on them | 0:22:36 | 0:22:37 | |
and then I remember the Apache engaging the guys. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
I remember the sound of the rounds. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
MAN CHEERS | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
From the evidence of the helmet camera footage, | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
one enemy fighter was seen to fall. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
Though, to everyone's consternation, another man was seen to escape. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
And then we were tasked to go over to one of the males who had been | 0:23:11 | 0:23:16 | |
hit by the helicopter and, I guess, see what state he was in, | 0:23:16 | 0:23:23 | |
get the weapons systems, any intelligence, you know, | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
do the normal protocol. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:27 | |
I don't think he's dead. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:31 | |
Blackman's patrol had been tasked to carry out a BDA, | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
or a battle damage assessment. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
In other words, check to see if this insurgent had been killed, | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
and then to take photographs and various measurements | 0:23:40 | 0:23:43 | |
for identification purposes. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:44 | |
Al, let's push up there. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:46 | |
I walked past this guy, | 0:23:47 | 0:23:49 | |
he was in the middle of a cornfield, a very exposed area. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
All I was concerned about at that point was doing my personal job, | 0:23:52 | 0:23:57 | |
which was to watch the western flank. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:02 | |
So as I pushed west, | 0:24:02 | 0:24:03 | |
I walked past this guy that had been hit by the Apache. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
Wasn't really interested in looking at him, | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
saw his dishdasha. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:13 | |
I believe he was wearing a sort of white dishdasha. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
And this guy had been hit by an Apache, so, you know, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:20 | |
it's going to do some serious damage. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
I thought the chances are this bloke is probably dead. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:27 | |
That's some guy in a bloody body on a floor. | 0:24:27 | 0:24:31 | |
I didn't know the guy. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
I've no emotional attachment to him. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
On that tour, I'd seen good mates of mine | 0:24:36 | 0:24:39 | |
in far worse states than that. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
So, you know, why should it make me feel any way? | 0:24:41 | 0:24:46 | |
So I walked past this guy, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:47 | |
and then the guys did their jobs behind me. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
Here's a simple map of the scene. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
The insurgent who'd been hit lay in a cornfield, here. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
To the east was a supply route | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
that Rob Driscoll had been trying to clear of IEDs, | 0:25:01 | 0:25:05 | |
and to the west were the compounds | 0:25:05 | 0:25:07 | |
that, earlier, Blackman and his patrol had stormed. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:10 | |
To the south, a tree line and an irrigation ditch. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
And this is where Blackman's patrol concealed themselves, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
helped by the fact there was a three- or four-metre stretch | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
of much more mature corn | 0:25:19 | 0:25:20 | |
which was that much higher and provided good cover. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:23 | |
Now, Blackman would have been totally within his rights | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
to shoot the insurgent from a distance | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
because he could have been ready to detonate a grenade | 0:25:30 | 0:25:32 | |
as soon as anyone got close to him. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:34 | |
When I went to see Blackman in prison, | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
he told me that that the insurgent | 0:25:36 | 0:25:37 | |
might have been a source of information, | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
and the marines were eager at that time to establish | 0:25:40 | 0:25:42 | |
the location of a bomb-making factory in the vicinity. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
So Sergeant Blackman and one other marine | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
moved forward to investigate the prone body. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
One of three other marines | 0:25:52 | 0:25:54 | |
who was standing back in the long corn to provide cover | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
was Sam Deen. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
He has since left the marines and returned to civilian life. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
I tracked him down and he agreed to talk to me. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
His memories of that day in Afghanistan were undimmed. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:11 | |
Basically, we went over and Al and one of the other guys, | 0:26:13 | 0:26:18 | |
they did their assessment on him. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:21 | |
They found a grenade, an AK, | 0:26:21 | 0:26:24 | |
quite a lot of rounds. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:25 | |
-So they moved forward first, you stood back? -Yeah. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
Then as they did the assessment, they rolled him over, | 0:26:28 | 0:26:32 | |
took the grenade off him and disarmed him. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:35 | |
They then called over for another guy and I went over. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
Because we were in the middle of a field, quite vulnerable, | 0:26:44 | 0:26:48 | |
we took him back to the side-line, | 0:26:48 | 0:26:50 | |
basically, on the edge of an irrigation ditch. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
Sam Deen and two others were called forward. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
So now five marines dragged the injured man | 0:27:01 | 0:27:03 | |
back here to the long corn. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
But was this just about seeking cover from the enemy | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
or was it to conceal what they were doing or might do? | 0:27:09 | 0:27:13 | |
Were they concerned about the circling Apache helicopter | 0:27:16 | 0:27:19 | |
with its powerful surveillance camera? | 0:27:19 | 0:27:22 | |
It was now that Blackman, | 0:27:22 | 0:27:24 | |
as part of his BDA, battle damage assessment, | 0:27:24 | 0:27:27 | |
got on the radio to tell all the other call signs what was going on. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
Rob Driscoll, at his checkpoint about 500 metres away, | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
was listening in on the radio | 0:27:44 | 0:27:46 | |
as Blackman proceeded with his battle damage assessment. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
Well, I'd hoped it went like every other BDA, | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
where we go out and everyone's dead, | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
and it's a case of swabbing their skulls or whatever is left of them. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
So we were very hopeful that's what was going to happen. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
And it wasn't to be, | 0:28:03 | 0:28:04 | |
cos as the communications unfolded, you know, | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
it obviously indicated that this guy perhaps wasn't dead. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
And that there was a strong chance that, | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
against all rationality and tactical sense, | 0:28:15 | 0:28:19 | |
we were going to try and... | 0:28:19 | 0:28:20 | |
..you know, get him out and get him to hospital and fix him up. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:26 | |
That wouldn't have been a popular move? | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
It wouldn't have been a popular move at all. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:31 | |
I mean, the guy has just been shooting at us. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:33 | |
He could have been the guy that shot at us an hour earlier. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:37 | |
Blackman was in a difficult situation, | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
militarily and morally. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:42 | |
According to the rules of war, an injured, captured enemy | 0:28:42 | 0:28:45 | |
is referred to as hors de combat, meaning outside the fight, | 0:28:45 | 0:28:49 | |
and so should be accorded the same treatment and respect | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
due to one of your own. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
But there were other considerations and pressures | 0:28:54 | 0:28:57 | |
piling in on Blackman - | 0:28:57 | 0:28:58 | |
in fact, piling in on everyone. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
Obviously, emotions are running high. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:06 | |
It's quite difficult to stop being | 0:29:07 | 0:29:11 | |
on the verge of being very aggressive, | 0:29:11 | 0:29:13 | |
to then treating a wounded male | 0:29:13 | 0:29:16 | |
who's been trying to kill you and your oppos. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:18 | |
So that's quite difficult to distinguish the two. | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
There was a clear reluctance to apply first aid to the insurgent... | 0:29:21 | 0:29:26 | |
..although battle dressings were eventually applied. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:34 | |
And there was some discussion amongst the patrol | 0:29:40 | 0:29:43 | |
and exchanges over the radio with HQ about activating a MERT, | 0:29:43 | 0:29:47 | |
that is, a "medical emergency reaction team", | 0:29:47 | 0:29:49 | |
to take the insurgent for medical treatment to Camp Bastion. | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
It's just not feasible, you know - | 0:29:57 | 0:29:59 | |
that would have meant a Mastiff group, | 0:29:59 | 0:30:02 | |
which is four or five vehicles crewed with five guys | 0:30:02 | 0:30:08 | |
coming up a route we know is IEDed | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
that we can't get out to clear, | 0:30:11 | 0:30:13 | |
cos every time we do, we get shot at. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:15 | |
The thought of them bringing in a million-pound aircraft | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
with a highly trained British crew | 0:30:18 | 0:30:20 | |
who have mums, dads, brothers and sisters, | 0:30:20 | 0:30:23 | |
that's what the enemy wanted us to do. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
They wanted us to land our aircraft | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
so they could try and shoot them or... | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
They wanted us to drive up the road so they could blow us up. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:37 | |
That's what they wanted. It's not like this guy was innocent at all. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:41 | |
He was proven guilty and, actually, | 0:30:41 | 0:30:43 | |
a decision had been made at some level to kill him. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:45 | |
So what you're saying is, as best as you can recollect, | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
is that what Blackman did is what everybody wanted him to do? | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
Yeah, on my recollection, | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
which I played back many, many times and tried to analyse, | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
was that there was certainly implied taskings on the radio. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:03 | |
It's... | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
When you say "implied taskings", what do you mean by that? | 0:31:06 | 0:31:08 | |
I mean that I think everyone that was speaking on that radio, | 0:31:08 | 0:31:11 | |
everyone...was sending out a signal to Al - | 0:31:11 | 0:31:16 | |
we don't need this to happen, you know? | 0:31:16 | 0:31:19 | |
Make it so that it doesn't happen. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:21 | |
-You mean in terms of evacuating the insurgent? -Yes. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
He could have done several different things. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
You know, and what he did... | 0:31:27 | 0:31:29 | |
The endgame is what I think everyone wanted. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
You know, that guy needed to pass away somehow. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:40 | |
I think how he did it perhaps was... | 0:31:40 | 0:31:44 | |
Well, in the eyes of the law, | 0:31:44 | 0:31:46 | |
it is the wrong thing to do, isn't it? | 0:31:46 | 0:31:48 | |
But everyone that day who was privy to the information, | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
who was stood by the gate ready to go, | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
they didn't want to go out and rescue some bloke | 0:31:55 | 0:31:57 | |
that's been shooting at them for the last four months. | 0:31:57 | 0:32:00 | |
Everybody wanted that guy to be dead. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
Implied tasking, in military terms, | 0:32:05 | 0:32:07 | |
is really saying something without spelling it out. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
So was Blackman responding consciously or subconsciously | 0:32:10 | 0:32:14 | |
to the power of the collective mind? | 0:32:14 | 0:32:18 | |
And there could have been another pressure on Blackman closer to home. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:22 | |
It's clear from the helmet camera footage | 0:32:25 | 0:32:27 | |
that some of the younger marines were getting agitated. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:30 | |
We were all pretty angry, and at the time when it happened, | 0:32:36 | 0:32:40 | |
it was just... | 0:32:40 | 0:32:41 | |
We just wanted to just get the assessment done and just leave, | 0:32:41 | 0:32:45 | |
we didn't really want to hang around. | 0:32:45 | 0:32:47 | |
At least two of the marines I can see from the video | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
had unsheathed their own pistols | 0:32:50 | 0:32:51 | |
and were threatening to shoot the insurgent themselves. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
One of the voices belongs to Jack Hammond, | 0:33:03 | 0:33:05 | |
referred to in the trial as Marine C. | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
And extracts from his diary from the day were read out in court. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:11 | |
This is one of them. | 0:33:11 | 0:33:13 | |
"So there I was, pistol drawn, | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
"waiting for the Sergeant and to get off the net" - that means radio - | 0:33:15 | 0:33:19 | |
"so I could pop this little wanker and be done with it." | 0:33:19 | 0:33:22 | |
Now, Hammond claimed that this was all just bravado, | 0:33:24 | 0:33:27 | |
but it may have impacted on Blackman all the same, | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
because Sam Deen also admits to mouthing off | 0:33:30 | 0:33:33 | |
about shooting the insurgent, | 0:33:33 | 0:33:35 | |
"just to be one of the lads," he says. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:37 | |
Would you say you feel responsible now? | 0:33:37 | 0:33:39 | |
You feel some guilt yourself? | 0:33:39 | 0:33:41 | |
Yeah, a little bit, yeah. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:43 | |
I feel like when we were there, I do remember saying, | 0:33:43 | 0:33:48 | |
"Yeah, I'll put one in his head as well." | 0:33:48 | 0:33:49 | |
And a few of the other lads said that. | 0:33:49 | 0:33:51 | |
I do think he took the responsibility | 0:33:51 | 0:33:53 | |
from the younger lads and the less senior blokes, | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
and he took it on his shoulders, | 0:33:56 | 0:33:57 | |
and I think he thought it was his responsibility to do it | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
and then move on, because there was | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
no point in calling in a MERT, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:05 | |
so guys could get shot out of the sky. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
He did draw a line in the sand, and I don't think... | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
He didn't kill him in cold blood, | 0:34:12 | 0:34:15 | |
he just did it so we could just get on with it and move on. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:19 | |
That's my personal opinion. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:21 | |
Yet another consideration, then - | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
did Blackman do what he did | 0:34:23 | 0:34:25 | |
partly to protect his own young marines from themselves? | 0:34:25 | 0:34:29 | |
I can't imagine what he was feeling. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
He's got young guys that, on camera, were going to shoot him anyway. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:35 | |
So in a weird way, he kind of took one for the team. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:40 | |
Whatever was going on in Blackman's mind, | 0:34:42 | 0:34:44 | |
we do know as soon as the Apache helicopter, | 0:34:44 | 0:34:47 | |
call sign Ugly, disappeared, | 0:34:47 | 0:34:49 | |
he shot and killed the insurgent. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
GUNSHOT | 0:34:56 | 0:34:58 | |
In a nutshell, in your view, Blackman did what he had to do? | 0:35:13 | 0:35:18 | |
Yeah, and this is why this gives me sleepless nights, | 0:35:18 | 0:35:22 | |
because I'm glad Al did what he did, | 0:35:22 | 0:35:25 | |
because all my guys went home. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:28 | |
And maybe, just maybe, | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
if he hadn't done that, you know, | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
I'd have been going to a few more funerals | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
or laying some more flowers on people's graves | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
for someone that I have absolutely zilch respect for. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:45 | |
Because he was trying to kill my friends and me. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
Colonel Lee, there's a view that what goes on on the battlefield | 0:35:52 | 0:35:56 | |
should stay on the battlefield? | 0:35:56 | 0:35:59 | |
I don't have any sympathy with that at all, | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
which is why I have never been | 0:36:02 | 0:36:04 | |
a direct apologist for Sergeant Blackman, | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
terribly sad though I find his circumstances. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:10 | |
I think what goes on on the battlefield, | 0:36:10 | 0:36:13 | |
quite rightly, particularly now in a 21st-century context, | 0:36:13 | 0:36:20 | |
it merits immensely careful scrutiny. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
And that seems to me to be right and proper, | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
and it also seems to me to be an absolutely key differentiator | 0:36:26 | 0:36:30 | |
between us and those, very sadly, in recent times we have fought. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:35 | |
Live, 30 mil only, | 0:36:35 | 0:36:36 | |
on the north-south wood line. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:38 | |
Engaging now. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:39 | |
And my equally concerning or sad hunch | 0:36:39 | 0:36:44 | |
is that the battlefields of the future | 0:36:44 | 0:36:46 | |
will be still more opaque and still more challenging | 0:36:46 | 0:36:50 | |
than those highly opaque and challenging ones of today. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:53 | |
And so I think that the importance of learning these sort of lessons | 0:36:53 | 0:36:58 | |
simply couldn't be any higher. | 0:36:58 | 0:37:00 | |
Sergeant Alexander Blackman, | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
as of today no longer a convicted murderer, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
will be resentenced for manslaughter | 0:37:12 | 0:37:14 | |
on the grounds of diminished responsibility. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:17 | |
But this long drawn-out case begs many questions, | 0:37:17 | 0:37:21 | |
not least of which is, | 0:37:21 | 0:37:22 | |
to what extent should the law allow for | 0:37:22 | 0:37:25 | |
the incredibly demanding and unique circumstances of front-line combat? | 0:37:25 | 0:37:30 | |
In modern warfare, | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
especially counterinsurgency warfare, | 0:37:33 | 0:37:35 | |
many talk about the need for courageous restraint, | 0:37:35 | 0:37:39 | |
that is, having the courage to use the minimum lethal force. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:43 | |
Our soldiers in Afghanistan had to combine ferocious intent | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
with this idea of courageous restraint constantly - | 0:37:48 | 0:37:51 | |
a difficult balance to achieve, | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
as Sergeant Blackman found out, to his cost. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
The truth is, war and the actions of our soldiers have never been | 0:37:57 | 0:38:01 | |
so closely watched, recorded and scrutinised. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:05 | |
That means the reality for the modern soldier, | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
perhaps as always, is that sometimes there can be a very thin line | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
between a court-martial and a Military Cross. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:16 | |
I'm asking you straight, now. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
Would you think that what happened that day | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
was the only time that happened in the Afghan war? | 0:38:23 | 0:38:26 | |
No. | 0:38:26 | 0:38:28 | |
-Either before or after? -Yeah. | 0:38:31 | 0:38:32 | |
That's the nature of the beast? | 0:38:32 | 0:38:34 | |
Yeah. And the same in every other conflict | 0:38:34 | 0:38:36 | |
where there was heavy kinetic activity. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
I think it was just another day in Afghanistan and... | 0:38:40 | 0:38:45 | |
..that's the way it goes out there. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:49 | |
None of us got hurt, | 0:38:50 | 0:38:52 | |
so it was a successful day, as far as I'm concerned. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:55 |