NZSAS soldiers think differently.

McLeod: “It is (finding) the best way to achieve your goal… whatever that may be. The idea is to think outside the square.”

If you have a target, think like the target. “What’s he going to expect? If I was him, what would I do? Where would I go? So how do I catch him out? That’s what you’re trying to achieve. He’s trying to kill you, you’re trying to kill him.”

If it’s surveillance, think about where to place an observation post. “If I was the enemy and looking at that piece of ground, I would say, ‘I would put one in there.’ (So) you go and put one over there. You try and out-think, out-smart, and do things a different way.

“Think outside the square. You’ve got to, else you will die.

“You go attack a building. The normal thing is to go through the door isn’t it? Why not go through the roof, or come through the floor. Can you do it? Yeah, why not?

“We’ve got a guy in a tower over there with an RPG and a sniper rifle and he’s picking off all our guys. How do you get him? There’s two ways. You send old bloody Elvis zig-zagging across the road and then he’ll poke his head out. When he pops his head out, he’ll be concentrating on that guy. You’ve got a guy over there to take him out.

“What’s another way of doing it? You send a fire engine up the street. He’s bound to pop his head up and wondering what the hell’s going on. He’ll pop up when the sirens are going, guarantee. You’ve got your man up there ready to go.”

The unit cultivates unconventional thought. Famously non-hierarchical, “even the young trooper has thoughts on how to do things”.

Plans are put before all and thrashed for opportunity or weakness.

“And at the end of the day (it’s) to achieve your objective. And the unit’s objective, which is the ultimate thing. And everyone does it from command level all the way down to the bottom man.”

Bojilova says training helps refine innate abilities needed to complete missions in places where troopers are isolated. Problem-solving is a key skill, “not just with what you have, but to think beyond what you perceive your capabilities to be at that time”.

“Similarly, curiosity. It’s not simply about problem-solving with the pieces of the puzzle that you have, but asking questions around what are the missing pieces. What are the dots that are connecting these things that are seemingly not connected?”

It produces a soldier who is “both mentally hard but also agile”, says Chris, attributes which might work at odds but actually compliment each other.

“They have confidence that they can step into the unknown and have an effective response.

“Capacity to be able to deal with stress in a way that sharpens and nuances ability to think thoroughly through stuff, as opposed to be confronted or overwhelmed or intimidated.”

Faced with a problem on a mission, not only is a solution tested against whether it would solve the immediate issue but how it would impact on the overall objective, in terms of that conflict and New Zealand’s place in it.

Bojilova says it means knowing troopers can maintain a “sound moral basis”, particularly given “the level of ambiguity they might be exposed to”. They operate in remote places, a long way from the command chain, where situations change quickly and decisions can have far-reaching implications. The moral baseline reinforces the Rules of Engagement and international laws around conflict - the NZSAS might operate in the shadows but it is expected to do so under the same guidelines all NZDF personnel do.

“Those who make it into the unit have a sort of homecoming - they have found a place where they belong. It is a place where what they have to give is matched by the demands of the environment. They way in which they are expected to give it is matched in the way it is taken."

In that search to be “useful”, they have found a place where the extent to which they can contribute is matched by the exceptional demands of the situation.

A place where those who dare, win.