“We Thought They Were Joking”
When U.S. Navy SEALs Met the Australian SAS in Vietnam
Rung Sat Special Zone, South Vietnam — October 1969
At first, the Americans thought it was bravado.
Forty-seven U.S. Navy SEALs stepped off the boats that night carrying what they always carried into Vietnam’s mangrove swamps: firepower, radios, redundancy, and the confidence that came from being told—repeatedly—that they were the best maritime commandos in the world.
Waiting for them were four Australians.
They looked wrong.
Too lean. Too quiet. Too lightly equipped. They didn’t crack jokes, didn’t check weapons obsessively, didn’t run through last-minute drills. One of them—a gaunt patrol leader the Americans would later nickname Scarecrow—stood motionless during the briefing, eyes distant, as if already somewhere else.
When he said his team had been in position for six days without moving, a SEAL lieutenant laughed.
Everyone did.
They stopped laughing three days later.
Two Elites, Two Philosophies
By 1969, the Navy SEALs had already earned their reputation. Precision raids. Aggressive violence of action. Speed, shock, and overwhelming force applied by small teams with superior equipment and near-limitless support.
The Australian SAS came from a different place.
Australia did not have endless manpower. It did not have half a million troops in theater. It could not afford attrition, noise, or mistakes. Its special forces had evolved for a different kind of war—one where survival depended less on firepower than on disappearing.
The joint operation was supposed to be routine: reconnaissance, observation, intelligence collection. No contact unless compromised.
But from the first hours in the swamp, the Americans sensed something unsettling.
The SEALs moved like professionals—tight formations, disciplined scanning, radios ready. Each man carried nearly 80 pounds of gear.
The Australians carried almost nothing.
One rifle each. Minimal ammunition. No grenades. No visible radios. Packs stripped to the bare essentials. They discarded food, spare clothing, even medical gear before insertion.
When a SEAL officer warned them they might need more ammunition, Scarecrow replied calmly:
“If I fire 200 rounds on this patrol, I’ve already failed.”
That sentence stayed with the Americans long after the mission ended.
The Jungle as a Language
The Australians did not move through the jungle.
They listened to it.
Every few steps, they stopped—not crouching, not kneeling, just standing still. Sometimes for a minute. Sometimes longer. To the SEALs, it looked inefficient. Even timid.
Then, before dawn, Scarecrow froze mid-step, one foot suspended in the air.
He held that position for nearly two minutes.
No one else heard anything.
Minutes later, a Viet Cong sampan drifted past—four men, relaxed, talking softly, less than twenty meters away. They passed without noticing the patrol at all.
Afterward, the SEAL lieutenant asked how the Australians had known.
“The birds stopped singing,” Scarecrow said.
“Four hundred meters out. Then three hundred. Something was coming.”
The Americans had been trained to listen for the enemy.
The Australians listened to the jungle itself.
That difference would haunt the SEALs for years.
Disappearing Instead of Fighting
At the observation site, the Australians did something that broke American expectations entirely.
They didn’t dig fighting positions.
They didn’t establish overlapping sectors.
They didn’t create a visible perimeter.
Instead, they merged with the terrain.
One man lay inside a hollow log. Another buried himself under mangrove roots. Scarecrow pulled leaf litter over his body until only his eyes and rifle barrel remained visible.
A fourth Australian stripped to his underwear, coated himself in swamp mud, then pulled his uniform back on.
“Smell is the first sense,” he whispered.
“Humans smell like humans.”
Within thirty minutes, the SEALs could no longer locate their allies—even knowing exactly where they were.
For eleven hours, one Australian did not move.
When a SEAL crawled forward to check if he was alive, a hand snapped out and locked onto his wrist with terrifying strength.
“Don’t,” the Australian whispered.
He had been watching the entire time.
Watching, Not Killing
On the second day, a reinforced enemy company—forty to fifty men—moved down the trail directly through the Australians’ field of view.
To the SEALs, it looked like an opportunity begging to be exploited. Air support. Artillery. A decisive blow.
The Australians did nothing.
They observed. Photographed. Counted. Recorded insignia. Let the enemy walk past untouched.
Hours later, a smaller group appeared—supply porters escorted by an officer.
“This one,” Scarecrow signaled.
The engagement lasted less than three seconds.
One shot. Two follow-ups. Three enemy dead.
Then came the moment that changed everything.
The Australians arranged the bodies.
Not mutilation. Not desecration. Theater.
They posed the officer upright against a tree. Placed his cap carefully back on his head. Crossed his arms. Tucked a playing card into his collar.
The message was deliberate.
When enemy recovery teams arrived, the psychological impact was immediate. Shock. Vomiting. Panic. They did not search. They did not pursue.
They fled.
“Killing three men removes them from the war for a day,” Scarecrow later explained.
“Terrifying their unit removes hundreds for a month.”
The SEALs were shaken.
They were experts at killing.
But this was something colder.
The Demonstration
Weeks later, joint training exercises followed.
What was meant to be professional exchange became a revelation—and then a crisis.
The Australians demonstrated long-range underwater swimming without scuba gear. Lock picking instead of breaching charges. Movement so slow it defeated human perception.
In tunnel-clearance training, they entered pitch-black confined spaces armed with knives instead of pistols.
No flashlights.
No sound.
When asked how they navigated, one Australian replied:
“You smell airflow. You hear breathing. Sometimes you hear the heartbeat.”
A young SEAL said aloud what others were thinking:
“That’s not soldiering. That’s not even human.”
For the first time, Scarecrow showed emotion—not anger, but something like sadness.
“You’re right,” he said.
“In the tunnels, humanity gets you killed.”
The Cost
By the end of the exchange, the joint program was terminated early.
Officially: scheduling conflicts.
Unofficially: psychological incompatibility.
Twenty-eight SEALs requested reassignment.
Two required psychiatric evaluation.
One broke down during debrief, saying, “I don’t want to become what they are.”
Nineteen others requested extended cross-training with the Australians.
Every request was denied.
The concern was not capability.
It was what that capability required you to give up.
What the SEALs Learned
The Australians were not better because they were braver.
They were better because they had no margin for error.
They came from a small country with limited manpower and no tolerance for casualties. Perfection was not ambition—it was necessity.
The SEALs returned to their units changed.
Not hardened—but humbled.
Over time, elements of Australian methodology quietly entered American special operations training: enhanced fieldcraft, patience, environmental awareness, combat swimming.
What did not transfer was the philosophy.
The willingness to become something else entirely.
“We Thought They Were Joking”
Years later, one SEAL officer would summarize the experience in a classified report that began with a single line:
“We thought they were joking.”
They were not.
The Australians were showing what warfare looks like when resources run out and only discipline remains.
They showed that elite status is not about equipment, funding, or reputation—but about how far you are willing to go, and what you are willing to lose, to achieve perfection.
The SEALs learned the ceiling.
Most chose not to reach it.
And that, perhaps, was the lesson that mattered most.
