Kat Rae served as an officer in the Australian Regular Army between 2000 and 2020. She deployed to the Middle East on three operations, twice to Afghanistan. She retired as a Lieutenant Colonel to pursue a career in the arts. In 2024 she won the Australian War Memorial Napier Waller Art Prize for her work Deathmin, which was subsequently featured in the ABC documentary series When the War is Over (2025). Her work, Reckoning, will be displayed in the new Australian War Memorial Afghanistan War gallery later this year. The piece centres the 39 Afghans allegedly murdered — the real victims largely absent from public debate.
I’m a veteran of 20 years. War crime apologists don’t speak for us. Like many who have served, I was deeply shaken by the Brereton Report in November 2020. The war crimes detailed across its 530 pages—including the alleged murder of 39 Afghans by Australian Special Forces soldiers—were far worse than anyone expected.
