He defined suicide as “ all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result.” He did not distinguish a soldier whose actions entail accepting the high probability (or even certainty) of death in order to accomplish some task from actions in which the soldier’s chooses to die during the course of a military operation. The French philosopher-sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is partly responsible for the confusion about strategic military suicide. I served as an expert witness for the prosecution in the Basson matter in the area of medical ethics and military medicine. In December 2013, a Hearing Panel for the Health Professions Council of South Africa found Wouter Basson MD culpable for unprofessional conduct because of his work to produce chemical weapons, to medically assist rendition by commandos (kidnappings), and to provide cyanide containing suicide capsules to Special Forces’ operatives leaving for clandestine meetings.