AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 131 of 332 Army would narrate their heroic experiences. While at my village school, whenever I saw any one passing by wearing the Army Uniform, I would be thrilled. After passing my matriculation I was successful in enrolling myself in the Army on 26 July 1996 in the 13th Battalion Jammu and Kashmir rifles. During the Kargil operations, my company was given the task of clearing the enemy from Pt. 4875 in the Mushkoh Valley and were supposed to assault the flat top point of Pt. 4875. On 4 July 1999, I volunteered to be the leading scout to move ahead of the company. Our C Company commander Major Gurpreet Singh decided to wait for a day due to the intense and accurate enemy fire. Even the next day, the firing continued but we had to accomplish our task. We obtained Artillery fire to shell the enemy locations to enable our move forward. After some time, we had to stop the artillery fire as we all would also come under its effect. So we had to move on our own. One GHATAK squad in which I was leading crawled forward, cleared the area and enabled the others to follow by crawling ahead as otherwise we would come under enemy machine gun fire. It was difficult and slow but there was no other option. Our firing and enemy firing back was like a ding dong battle. Both sides were suffering, but our casualties were higher as we were in the open and the enemy was in the bunker. We had to hold on and surprise the enemy. It was a battle of nerves and soon we were on the top and were able to silence their guns by lobbing grenades inside the bunkers. After we managed to capture one of their bunkers in a hand to hand fight killing three of the intruders, things became a bit easy. But we had lost quite a few and some were also injured but still carrying on. Two bullets hit me, one on the hip and another on the knee but I did not fall back and charged the enemy in the second bunker and the enemy was totally surprised and left behind the Universal Machine gun and started running. I picked up the UMG and killed the fleeing enemy. Only two of us were left when we captured the last bunker. Although I was profusely bleeding due to my bullet injuries, I did not want to be evacuated and be with my company at this momentous hour of victory. My company soon cleared the post. We counted the dead bodies and found twelve of them. Lots of arms, ammunition and equipment were also found in the post. Our allotted task was accomplished and I am proud of my company and our Battalion” Rifleman Sanjay Kumar was later decorated with the Param Vir Chakra for his most conspicuous gallantry, cool courage and devotion to duty of an exceptionally high order in the face of the enemy. Paying tribute to my beloved Regiment and its valiant soldiers is not complete without paying homage to the many of our heroes who laid down their precious lives for the honour of the regiment to protect a piece of terrain that was barren and inhospitable for the sake of his country, countrymen and his motherland, all for our tomorrow. To all of them, I bow my head in utter reverence and devotion and pray for the welfare of their kin. The nation pays its tribute on every Republic Day by including the living recipients of the nation’s highest gallantry award winners of Param Vir and Ashok Chakra leading the parade in a decorated open jeep for the people to feel proud of their heroes. It is with