Agreed, wrathmonk, special circumstances there...plus, it's fair to say, a pretty generous helping of benefit of the doubt.
The account by huge 72 tallies fairly well with the other sources, the only exception being the Colonel getting credit for talking them down. In fact an Royal Hong Kong Police Sergeant showed great bravery by going in (which probably wouldn't happen today)to talk them out shortly before the SDU did their stuff. This certainly saved their lives. This doesn't of course exclude the Col may have played a role but his performance leaves unanswered questions; how did they acquire industrial quantities of alcohol at their operational post on the border, what where their immediate commanders doing in the hours it must have taken to consume it, how did they access a rifle, ammunition and a Land Rover in that state...then why weren't they missed, and how on earth could they have waltzed in and out of a different base an hour or so later? Ought he really go down as the hero given the, to put it mildly, failures in supervision and leadership that allowed such a pantomime?