All for the Dear Motherland

ALL FOR THE DEAR MOTHERLAND
(A leap from Kargil ……)

Death stared at Indian soldiers at every step they crept along the cold steep slopes from high above. But when it came to responding to the call of duty, sky was the limit.

The enemy and weather vied with each other seeking to assert supremacy knowing little that the last hurrah was reserved for the Indian Jawans whose heroism in recapturing the Tiger Hills has already become part of the army folklore.

“With artillery shells whistling overhead and empty stomach...we kept crawling up along almost perpendicular rocks to reach the destination fast”, recalled Satpal Singh, one of the first two jawans who returned from atop the Tiger Hill on successful completion of the operation.

“The journey to the hill top is next to impossible as there are no tracks in the conical mountain. The rocks are steep, almost perpendicular”, he said.

Well aware of the “death trap” ahead, the Indian soldiers with rope tied round their waists kept climbing and crawling until a forward observation post was established which would direct the fire of a battery of artillery at Dras.

“Weather God also played tricks at times...”, he said.

As the Indian soldiers neared the goal, grenades were thrown at them by intruders who shouted “Indians go ”, recalled Madan with a stony face. The intruders, were holed up in bunkers while the Indian soldiers had to hide behind boulders in freezing cold, he said. But every Indian soldier that night was charged and motivated to evict the intruders and there was no looking , Madan said.

“Neither the shelling by the enemies nor the weather, not the steep climb could deter us from completing the mission”, he recalled - PTI
[Courtesy ‘The Hindu’]