SERGEANT Matt Locke’s funeral will be held tomorrow and he deserves all the gratitude and recognition the nation can give him. Almost 4000 Australian servicemen and women are deployed across the world: in Iraq and Afghanistan, in East Timor and the Solomons, in the Sinai and elsewhere in the Middle East. Every one of them faces difficulties, most face serious dangers. They put their lives at risk for Australia.

They all embrace the danger of service, a danger we have lately seen can be deadly.

The Australian military is good by any standard. The Special Air Service, to which Locke belonged, is the finest special forces group in the world. I really have no doubt about that. Its performance demonstrates it again and again, and the most experienced Americans, Britons and Israelis from within the special forces communities, will bear the judgment out.

A key to any good soldier is courage under fire and loyalty to his mates. Locke had those qualities, and many others. This week I received a tribute to the fallen SAS trooper, killed by Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan, fighting with natural heroism in a just cause that too many of us want to ignore. The tribute came from a senior officer, who had served with Locke, but asked that his own name not be used.   …….more