IDHAR UDHAR KI BAAT 58 - WISDOM OF VETERANS

IDHAR UDHAR KI BAAT 54 – EXUBERANCE OR RASHNESS OR STUPIDITY

"I haven't had sex yet. God don't let me die. I am just 22 plus," I whispered my prayers to the God. I was in a 'stay behind party' where I was taking stock of the blunders I committed. In exuberance I had decided to keep myself with three other jawans hiding under the bushes in the abandoned LTTE camp in the jungles of Sri Lanka.  The first thing which went wrong was the radio communication with my two jawans hiding fifteen meters away. The batteries of their VM Mk 2A radio set had gone dead. During day we could communicate with hand signals but with the nightfall everything was left to chance. There was no worthwhile night vision device with us and we had to rely on our ears only. Sitting in the dark I was wondering that the man who wrote  procedure of attack across the ditch cum bund must have never  operated in the dark. Otherwise he wouldn’t have expected a breakout before first light.

I remembered that the leader of the party who was to respond in case of imminent threat was not that capable. I was not sure whether he had deployed properly around eight hundred meters away. But then I realised that my jawans with him are highly reliable so they will take up the challenge when required. The plan to be in 'stay behind party' was purely driven by my imagination or longing to kill the Tamil Tigers in case they returned to the camp. Now the thought of Tigers coming in multitude haunted me. The bushes were just the place for hiding. There was no defensibility. Only defensible thing was the placing of four claymore mines. It was thought that I will be able to hold on to the Tamil Tigers for some time with the combination of mines and small arms fire and my party would come to our help. And then I remembered of a recent  case where the party which had to respond had not responded in time for some reason, resulting in the massacre of a few men. I now remembered that I had not cleaned the barrel of my Carbine yesterday before taking off for the operation. Again a mistake as it had developed the stoppage of size se mota round in the last encounter. Overall I was worried  the whole night for I had planned this operation purely on keenness and haste without giving details to my seniors.

I remembered the words of Brig LP Sen in his book ‘Slender was the thread’ about some officer  who died along with his soldiers “It was brought about by enthusiasm which blinded the individual concerned and led him to an act of unjustified rashness and stupidity.”

At the first light my buddy wrote something on his diary and passed it on. It read ‘9 man’. With his eyes he pointed towards half left.  Apni Phati (I got scared) because nine men from one side means the Tamil Tigers are coming in multitude. When I scanned the area I only saw some deer grazing.  I realised  that in Tamil a deer is called a मन(Māṉ).  It was a big relief as I felt that our concealment was so good that the deer also could not detect. Another fifteen minute I was thinking that I will have to instruct the company cook to use less of hing (asafoetida) as the smell became unbearable. I know my buddy also must be finding my emissions unbearable. But he didn’t complain. Perhaps that is also unspoken part of the espirit de corp. Again I realised that it was a folly of not planning the food intake of the nominated stay behind party well in advance. Such type of operations require a lot of planning. It is not just the arms and ammunition and good firing that a group transforms into a commando. Years of culture and training makes a unit and subunit capable enough.

As the time passed it became unbearable to stay there, but my resolve was not letting me give up.  I was thinking that we must be there till the last light. But then God was kind, as one member of the team had severe dehydration and we had to abort the operation by noon. On my way back I was thinking that I will have to be more deliberate and keep a check on my exuberance. I was remembering that my parents will not be able to bear my loss. My sister had written that my father had developed hypertension. Any news of a soldier’s death and he stops talking till the name of the soldier is seen on the media. His hands shake even to read a normal telegram from his office.

But the very next week I was running after a group of Tamil Tigers like an idiot. Or conducting operations throwing caution to the four winds. That stupidity or exuberance of mine continued even in my RR Tenure as company commander.  I was  lucky nothing bad happened.

It is only when I went to command the RR Battalion that I did things with great patience and deliberations. To the extent that my young officers felt that ‘budda is coward’ till the time we got first success at no cost of life or injury. Thus, I demonstrated to them that they can still kill the terrorist. Beyond my unit command I stopped worrying about the loss of life as I slipped into the Mainu Ki attitude.

But one day I heard the screams of a mother of a young soldier killed in action. Those cries pierced my heart and I wrote a book about my experiences to serve as a lesson for the future generation to help save lives. Unfortunately, very few people are in the habit of  reading these days.

Death of a soldier when the terrorists have launched an offensive action is understandable. But death of soldier when we have launched the operation smells of immaturity. Young soldiers will be impulsive and impatient. At that age and service, they are expected to be so. But if we lose lives, it clearly means that some Commanding Officer or above is on a vacation or indulging in bean counting. 

Every time I hear about a soldier’s death during an operation undertaken by them, I feel it could have been prevented.