Inquiry examines brutal SAS training course and how three men died during 2013 ‘death march’

The Brecon Beacons are the tallest mountains in southern Britain and they’ve claimed their share of victims.

Rohan Smithnews.com.au

THERE’S a training course so difficult it’s tackled by only the world’s fittest, strongest men. Most of those who try it come out with battle scars — mental and physical. Some don’t come out at all.

The challenge, for those who choose to accept it, is days of timed marches carrying heavy gear in blistering heat or freezing cold conditions. The marches are colloquially termed “death marches” for the toll they take on participants’ bodies.
The prize for completing the course is a place with the British Special Air Service, or SAS, but getting there requires sacrifices most aren’t willing — or able — to make.
Three men, including an Australian, died trying to complete the gruelling test of endurance in 2013 and this week one of the men’s parents told an inquiry the SAS was “indifferent to injury or death” and gave the impression “the lives of (our) loved ones had no value”.
The inquiry poses important but ongoing questions: Does the SAS ask too much of recruits when it pushes them to the edge of what’s humanly possible? Is it okay to expect that only the strongest survive?
THE DEATH MARCH
It’s called the Special Forces Aptitude Test but it’s not like any other test.
Held during the height of summer and the depths of winter in Welsh countryside known as the Brecon Beacons, soldiers aiming to secure the famous golden wings of the SAS are asked to do the near impossible.
The course was first designed in the 1950s and has remained the same through seven decades. It involves a climb over Pen Y Fan, the highest peak in the picturesque mountain range and the highest in southern Britain. Participants carry a huge rucksack, a rifle and just a single bottle of water.
It’s a test of endurance and will power. The march must be completed without stopping over a course that some say is 64km and passes through the most difficult terrain imaginable. You quit and you’re out.

Australian Corporal James Dunsby “begged for water” before his death in 2013.Source:Supplied

Not surprisingly, it takes its share of victims. Most drop out before completing the march. Some persevere, to their ultimate demise. ‘Who dares wins’, after all, is the SAS motto.
Reservists Lance Corporal Craig Roberts, Trooper Edward Maher and Corporal James Dunsby, formerly from Hobart, collapsed under the pressure during sweltering weather in the summer of 2013.
Two of the soldiers — Maher and Roberts — died that day in July. Dunsby died in hospital two weeks later from multiple organ failures.
A coroner concluded that “serious mistakes and systemic failures” amounted to “neglect” in the men’s deaths. Witnesses would later tell how all three men were seen dressed in full combat gear, begging for water, on one of the hottest days of the year. They were urged to go on. They did and it cost all three their lives.
‘THE ORGANISATION IS OUT OF CONTROL’
The parents of Edward Maher, who died aged 34, told MPs investigating the Ministry of Defence’s safety record this week the SAS is “out of control”.
Edward Maher Snr and his wife Marie said in a statement the SAS pushed their son too far. They said the worst part is that the organisation is held “above the law”.
“Our perception is the SAS appears to be answerable only to the Secretary of State for Defence … (and) appears to be currently exempt from the broader legal and financial penalties that regulate every other organisation in the UK,” they said.
“We believe an organisation which is not subject to control is, by definition, out of control.
“We cannot accept that (those running the SAS selection course) should not be answerable in law in cases where people die as a result of their gross neglect. This effectively makes them unique among all UK citizens and puts them above the law
“The complete absence of any punitive fines on special forces when they neglectfully cause death leaves families with the perception that the lives of their loved ones had no value. It leaves families with the perception that the SAS has caused death but has not ‘paid’, in any sense, for its errors,” the pair said.
More than a dozen men have died trying to complete the course over the years. In 2011 Royal Marine Benjamin Poole, 26, died at the end of one of the marches. Poole had been sent on a five-minute ­punishment run immediately before his march and collapsed less than a kilometre from the final checkpoint.
In 1981, two candidates died during the selection test. In 1979 Major Mike Kealy died of hypothermia on the Brecon Beacons.
Mr and Mrs Maher hope their son’s death will be the last in a string of deaths attributed to the mountain and those recruits who go up and down it.
For its part, the SAS says it is making changes. Major General Christopher Tickell, head of the Army’s recruiting division, told the inquiry safety shortcomings had led to officer’s being sacked.
The inquiry is expected to last several weeks.