Sunday Times 2
Bravery and betrayal: Stirring and thrilling story of a commando unit
Reviewed by Maior General Lalin Fernando
This book is incendiary. It is a heart-breaking, enraging and marvellous story. It is Lt Col Sunil Peiris, the founder Commander of the Commando Regiment’s account of what it was like to raise, select, train, and inspire Commandos in a slow peace time army to possess the spirit, skills, endurance and daring needed in war. He then led them in fighting home grown, Indian army-trained terrorists.
It is an extraordinary book with unparalleled revelations about the efforts of an extraordinary officer and his vision to create an elite Commando. Nothing like it has ever been written before in Sri Lanka. It has a fiery and shocking finish.
This is the first book on the regimental battle history to be launched of the 30-year conflict that ended in 2009. It is also about the blood spilled and tears shed for comrades, betrayals and terrible secrets. It is about the formidable Commandos of Sri Lanka.
As a Gemunu Watch captain with just nine years military service, Lt. Col Sunil Peris was nominated by Army Commander Gen Dennis Perera to the Commander in Chief, the then President J.R. Jayewardene, who wanted the best officer the army had to raise an amorphous unit. This had no name and a nebulous role to ‘tackle aircraft hijacking and hostage taking’ which had proliferated exponentially in the 1970s. The C-in-C selected him. With initial trepidation at a task no one at such a young age and with limited experience had ever been entrusted, he accepted the daunting challenge with the exuberance, also the giddiness, of youth. He modelled it in time to become first the Commando squadron, then an elite Commando Regiment. It is a Brigade now of 4 regiments with a formidable reputation and battle history.
It is compelling reading by a radical thinker, a brilliant leader with exceptional talents and trainer of formidable men who survive the toughest ever selection process that prides itself on the numbers it rejects. It is profoundly instructive of the gruelling and challenging training that all potential Commandos take part in.
It is a timely book with an eclectic sweep through selection and battle preparation. The training culminates in a 162km, six-day rapid approach march through jungle with river crossings carrying a weight of 30kg and a weapon. It starts from Nelum Oya, near Inginiyagala in Ampara via Thoppigala (Friars Hood), Maduru Oya, Dehiattekanda, Elehara, and Bakamuna to a hostage rescue action at Sigiriya airfield. Every inch of the route was reconnoitered by the Commander and Capt (later Brigadier) Vipul Botejue before the exercise began.
It is a thought provoking work, stimulating, edgy, topical with an ebb and flow that is unpretentious, passing scholarly but unidiomatic. It gives stirring accounts of operations with his men from start to finish; deep inside enemy lines in LTTE-occupied Jaffna. He could not have wished for more than to lead the men he trained and lived with into battle.
It is highly readable, in direct prose with subtle humour, fascinating with elegance, expertise and generous mention of all who joined in making the Commando. There will be few who fail to learn from these pages much that is new to them.
The author was well aware of unseen, envious forces that always shape fate. The book deals with evil men in power. The book is about inspiration and optimism in the face of negativity among a few of the Army’s corridor guerillas and milk bar Clausewitz.
It brings out the unvarnished truth of anguish, heroism, stupidity, desperate courage and the savagery of combat. It is factual and credible. It is a book military officers and patriots who are not scoundrels must read. Had there been extracts from war diaries, too, they would have added much to the narrative. The Commandos would in time together with the Special Forces, raised by another Thomian Major (later Major General) Gamini Hettiarachchi, be the Army’s strategic reserve and pride.
The revelations in the book are gripping, riveting, astonishing, chilling, blistering and gritty. It is about conducting surveillance, gathering intelligence and launching counter-terrorist operations deep inside enemy lines. The reward was betrayal at the end. It is moving and will make the strongest heart weep.
It has a clear narrative and analysis with a leavening of marvellous anecdotes. They are more gripping than fiction and give a graphic account, harrowing to incredible, for a thriller no hold barred, no punches pulled performance. It is fascinating and deserves a place in the annals of soldiering.
It is compelling reading by a radical thinker, a brilliant leader with exceptional talents and a trainer of exceptional men. It ends unfortunately as years of iron discipline were thrown to the winds when disobedience became a necessity. It builds up to a most exciting climax, immensely readable with warmth and humour. It is also heart breaking.
It ends explosively with facts hitherto unknown to any, including even his close band of regimental brothers. History and his example were repeated when two brother officers of the Gemunu Watch, Lt Cols (later Brigadiers) Vipul Botejue and Hiran Halangode and an Armoured Corps officer Col Lalith Guneratne took the same path of honour and humanity in confronting the same man. There may have been others. Had there been more, the squall of prospective war crimes charges in 2009 may not have followed.
They, like Col Peiris, followed Napoleon’s maxim that there is necessity for disobedience. Col Peiris resigned from the Army and command of the Commandos that he had given everything for to protect his honour, conscience and manhood. The very C in C who selected him to raise and command the Commandos meekly took the side of a minister.
Command of a Battalion or Regiment is the best command in the Army. It is the ‘seed corn for higher command’. Lt Col Peiris’ resignation is all the more tragic for that. To found one from scratch at the age of 29, growing it to an elite Regiment and commanding it in battle is beyond the wildest dreams of any officer. That it was all given up for the reputation of the men in his regiment, the regiment and the army and his own sense of honour, pride and humanity will surely now make history.
‘We are pilgrims, Master; we shall go Always a little further’ – James E Flecker – ‘Golden Journey to Samarkand’.
The book is available at Expographic
455, Pannipitiya Road,
Battaramulla.