Kargil Vijay Diwas: Rtd Major General Samir Chakravorty learnt lessons for a lifetime!

I have been fortunate to get a chance to fight for India. I was the Commanding Officer (CO) of the 18 Garhwal Rifles battalion that fought the Kargil War and was awarded six Veer Chakras, 11 Sena medals, seven Mention-in-Despatches and 10 COAS commendation cards. We launched three attacks in 20 days, two at Point 5100 and one at Point 4700.
Kargil, for me, was about determination and bravado, and this is what I learnt:

LESSON NO.1: NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN

The biggest lesson I learnt is never to lower one's defenses. For instance, it took us time to identity the infiltrators. We were first given to understand that there are militants on the other side, and then we thought they were Mujahideen. Post counter-fire, we discovered Pakistani army weaponry. The army and the nation were definitely asleep as the enemy had done a tremendous amount of build up in terms of manpower, ammunition, fabricated huts, etc. This would have taken more than a year.

LESSON NO. 2: ADAPT

Imponderable, unforeseen circumstances meant we learn to shift, modify and undo plans instantly. At times we didn't know the location of the enemy because a recce wasn't possible. And the mountains are unpredictable. Once, my troops and I were hiding behind a cliff for protection against enemy firing, short of Point 5100, when all of sudden a round of artillery fire came our way. The map showed the attack came from our side. The target was actually intended to cross the LoC, but the altitude caused the fall of rounds to go up and down. We had to deal with the problematic handling of rations, evacuation of casualties and telecommunication. For example, for the first few days we lived on shankar para, namak para, khichdi and tea rations. Cooked food would turn bad by the time it reached us because it was cooked at an altitude of 5-6,000 feet where it was warm and made at night, then packed and by the time reached us it was two nights old. Or the Garhwalis delivering the food would eat half the supplies or drop it. We somehow managed and within 10-12 days, provisions were made to lightweight One Man Compo Pack Ration (dehydrated foods).

Lesson No. 3: KEEP YOUR WITS ABOUT YOU

As a soldier, we are trained to keep our wits about us. But it's something we all tend to miss when in the thick of things. For instance, the captain of 13 JAK Rifles was untying his shoe laces when the tent he was in got hit by an artillery shell. A rifleman, who had been lucky two times, came up for a third attack was directly hit by an artillery round and thrown up in the air before succumbing. A loss is a loss. I had to look ahead and control my emotions, otherwise I would have positioned my battalion wrongly and exposed them to enemy firing. As the CO, I had to also motivate my men to go into battle as dead bodies were arriving from all over since we were camping in a place that had a helipad and we had to go uphill — climbing 100 meters would take nearly two hours.

LESSON NO. 4. FOLLOW THE RULES

After we had fulfilled our objectives at Point 4700, I told my troops to head back to camp and relax. Without my knowledge, the captain took a jeep and a driver into the night. En route, they got off to observe the rockets being fired from our side. The enemy opened counter bombardment fire and the boys got hit by the splinters and died. In another instance, one jawan picked up a sabot — a shiny object released when ammunition is fired and contains explosive content, lying on the battlefield — We'd had especially instructed these must not be touched. The other jawans started playing with it and the damn thing blasted. We had 15 casualties of which two were seriously injured.