July 26 is Vijay Diwas, the thirteen anniversary of the Kargil war. For many young people across the country it was the first war they ever experienced.
It was on these snowy wastes that the Indian soldier wrote a new chapter in courage and he wrote it in blood.
It was a war that few, even within the army, expected or were prepared for. The first few days were lost as the army tried to figure out what had happened.
"I was out of the country and was told they were militants but then militants do not hold ground," said General V P Malik (Retired), Former Chief of Army Staff.
A memorial has been built to honour Kargil heroes in Drass. Over 600 soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice for their country in the Kargil war in 1999.
Family members of those soldiers are in Drass to observe a prayer meeting. The memorial is an attempt to make sure the sacrifices made by the soldiers are not forgotten easily.
In May 1999, as the nation was caught in the euphoria of Lahore, the first shots of India's fifth war were being fired high up in the snowy wastes of Kargil.
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.
Source: YUVA NIRMAAN
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