They had to climb almost vertical slopes
They had to climb almost vertical slopes loaded with ammunition and weapons in altitudes where every breath was difficult.
They had to do this while under constant shell and machine gunfire from an enemy dug in behind stone sangars.
As the first few assaults died down in the withering fire from the peaks the body bags started coming back home. The mood in the nation was grim; morale was low.
It was then that a 200-year-old battalion of the Rajputana Rifles showed the way. In a series of
assaults it captured the Tololing ridge. It was the first victory of the war.
New heroes:As army units cleared the enemy off peak after peak,India was discovering new heroes: Anuj Nayyar, Vikram Batra, Manoj Pandey, all very young, very brave and all of them dead.
The war was reaching a crescendo and the climax was the fall of Tiger Hill in July to the 18th grenadiers. This battle too had a young hero, 18-year-old Yoginder Yadav who sustained 18 bullet wounds but won the peak.
More than 600 Indian soldiers fell in Kargil. The years will pass, the memories might dim and the fallen may be forgotten.
But there will always be, in the hearts and minds of those who go to Kargil and look at those heights, a sense of wonder, of awe at the men who conquered them.
This July let us pay our tribute to Kargil War Heroes.
PS: Inspiration for this write-up is my brother, against all odds braving tough weather, bureaucratic mind, with limited finances went ahead and shot documentary on Kargil war and war Heroes…. Releasing next month
