Wars And Lessons(Part 2)

"Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back."                                                                                                    

 ~Heraclitus

And in the second part of the series Wars and Lessons, we are going to talk about that one warrior, the one who is the real inspiration for us. But it is not like a warrior or a soldier wants a war. In the words of Douglas MacArthur.

“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”

But if it happens then the soldier is the one who faces it, conquers it, and wins it. In this part, we are going to talk about some of the finest warriors of the Indian Defence Forces.

1.     Major General Ian Cardozo- If I have been given an opportunity to introduce Maj Gen Cardozo, I would introduce him as the first Indian war-disabled officer to command a battalion and later a brigade. This is not it; he was one of the two cadets in the history of NDA to receive both President’s Gold medal and Silver medal. He was the one in second in command to the Indian army’s first Heliborne operation, i.e. “The Battle of Sylhet”.

After the fall of Dhaka, Cardozo stepped on a land mine and his leg was critically injured. Due to the non-availability of morphine or pethidine, and absence of medics, his leg could not be amputated surgically. He subsequently used his khukri to amputate his own leg. Afterward, his unit captured a Pakistan-army surgeon, Maj. Mohammad Basheer, who operated on Cardozo.

After his amputation, Cardozo had a wooden leg. Despite this, he maintained his physical fitness levels and beat a number of able-bodied officers in battle physical fitness tests. He then put his case to the Chief of Army Staff at the time, Gen. Tapishwar Narain Raina, who then asked Cardozo to accompany him to Ladakh. After observing that Cardozo could still walk in the mountains through snow and ice, Gen. Raina allowed him to command a battalion. The same case again came when he has to take command of a Brigade, but again he proved himself and was promoted to the rank of Brigadier later. 

2. Captain Mahendra Nath Mulla- One of the finest and bravest soldiers in the history of the Indian navy. He Embraced the best of naval traditions, choosing not to save his own life and go down with the sinking ship. The most poignant moment for those who survived was the sight of the 45-year-old Capt. Mulla on the bridge, puffing his cigarette as the ship went down.

During the 1971 War, Mulla was commanding the 14th anti-submarine squadron, a task force that formed part of the Western Fleet. The squadron consisted of the INS Khukri (F149), INS Kirpan (F144), and INS Kuthar (F146). The squadron was assigned the task of hunting and destroying enemy submarines in the North Arabian Sea. At 2050 hours on 9 In December 1971, his vessel, INS Khukri, was hit by a torpedo fired by an enemy submarine, PNS  Hangor, about 64 kilometers (40 mi) off Diu. He issued orders for the ship to be abandoned because it was sinking. He chose to go down with the ship in the highest traditions of the Indian Navy. Mulla was decorated with the Maha Vir Chakra, the second-highest gallantry award.

3.    Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan- Almost all of us have witnessed one the deadliest terror of India. Major Unnikrishnan was the hero of the 26/11 attacks of Mumbai. The hero who saved the lives of 14 hostages for the sake of his own life.

Major Unnikrishnan was the team commander of 51 Special Action Group (51 SAG) deployed in the operation at the hotel to rescue the hostages. He entered the hotel with a group of 10 commandos and reached the sixth floor through the staircase. As the team descended the stairs, they suspected perpetrators on the third floor. A few women were held as hostages in a room that was locked from the inside.

The team decided to break open the door and when it was done the team faced barrage of fire from the terrorists. The rounds of fire by the perpetrators hit Commando Sunil Yadav, who was Major Unnikrishnan’s colleague. Major Unnikrishnan engaged the perpetrators in a firefight and arranged for Yadav’s evacuation. Later Major Unnikrishnan gave a chase to the terrorists who had escaped to another floor of the hotel. In the encounter that followed, he was shot from the back which proved fatal. His last words, according to NSG officials were, “Do not come up, I will handle them,” . His exceptional courage and leadership motivated his comrades to eliminate all the terrorists and complete the assigned mission successfully.

4.   Major Sudhir Kumar Walia- Major Walia was one of the few Indian soldiers who got an opportunity to speak at Pentagon during a specialization which he topped. During that course, he was also called ‘colonel’ due to respect for his competence.

As a Lieutenant, Walia was awarded the Sena Medal in 1994 for gallantry on two separate occasions for combating militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.

He was later deputed as an Aide-de-camp (ADC) to the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), General Ved Prakash Malik. When the Kargil War broke out, he obtained special permission from the COAS to go to the battlefield. Within ten days of his departure from Delhi, he led his team to capture Zulu Top at 5200 meters, in the Mushkoh Valley sector and that too without acclimatization.

On 29 August 1999, he led an assault on a militant hideout in the Haphruda jungles of Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir. He killed 9 of a total of 20 militants and sustained gunshot wounds in the process. Though he was unable to move, he continued to give orders to his team until they succeeded. He allowed himself to be evacuated only 35 minutes after the operation ended. He was airlifted to the army base hospital but he succumbed to the injuries en route. For his bravery, he was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra, the highest peacetime military decoration in India.

I have just told you the story of four warriors of Indian armed forces. But there are many, right from Major Somnath Sharma to Corporal Jyoti Prakash Nirala who protected sovereignty and integrity of our country. They kept their own ease, comfort, and safety at last. But we barely remember those and it’s perfectly fine after all we are living in a democratic country and everybody has their right to choose what to remember and what not to. But if you choose to remember those bravest souls, you will definitely get that courage to fight in every situation and you will surely consider yourself blessed. But, in case you choose not to remember, in my view, you either don’t know the real meaning of independence or you just don’t want to.

Images Source: Google

-Divyansh Anand 

(Dayatva Team Member)