Diggers killed in Afghanistan

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Sapper Darren Smith and Herbie were both killed by an improvised bomb.

TWO young Australian combat engineers on their first deployment in Afghanistan have been killed by a bomb in the army’s worst combat loss in a single day since the Vietnam War. A bomb detonated during a patrol on Monday morning, killing Sapper Jacob Moerland, 21, and Sapper Darren Smith, 26, both from the Brisbane-based 2nd Combat Engineer Regiment. As a sad coincidence, to the best of my knowledge, the last time the ADF lost two troops on one day in action was in Vietnam on 1 Feb 1971 when Ray ‘General’ Patten and Alan Talbot, both of Recce Platoon 7RAR, were killed by a mine blast. I have written up that incident here.
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War on Terror

3 comments

  • kae
    Wednesday, 9 Jun 10 at 21:04

    Sad.

    Reply
  • kae
    Saturday, 10 Jul 10 at 10:35

    Did you catch 4 Corners last Monday? Part Two this Monday – Chris Masterton was with this mentor group when the IED killed the two soldiers.
    I think it’s a good program.
    Soldiers were interviewed saying that the Talib would fire at them, then put down their weapons and stand amongst the children. If the soldiers fired at them whenthey were with the children the Talib knew that they had won, that the western soldiers were as bad as they are, and would condemn them, and laughed and grinned at them while standing with the children.

    Reply
  • Kev
    Saturday, 10 Jul 10 at 10:48

    Yes, I did watch it – good show but there were no surprises for this old digger.

    Reply

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