Dr Wayne Hope

The construction of this book was a painstaking and dangerous enterprise. John Stephenson risked life and limb by returning to the villages and interviewing survivors, and assembling the family trees of the dead and wounded. Empty shell casings from Apache helicopter cannon rounds were collected and photographed. A series of locally sourced stories from the Pajhwok News Agency, pointing to civilian deaths and casualties were filed. And, as mentioned earlier, a locally documented list of the dead and wounded was obtained and photocopied. By triangulating this material with the admissions of anonymous sources throughout the SAS and NZDF, Hager and Stephenson have built a powerful case.