Sleep peacefully, the soldiers are on guard for us

When my dad was serving and we were closer to the military environment, my heart was filled with a different kind of respect for the forces. We saw life through that vantage point and i thought it was a given that the military protects and the people are proud. The farther i got away from my defence life, the more i realised that the protecting is a given but the respect is not. When i was living in Chennai for a while, I remember asking a few people if there was a war memorial i could visit, no one knew. I researched a bit and found out that there was a Victory War Memorial and a War Cemetery that had more to do with British victories of that time, later having additions from the Wars India fought after independence. It used to upset me initially but then slowly i got lost in the hustle of life and never realised when i started scrolling past news of martyrs in everyday skirmishes. It took the loss of someone closer home for me to regain perspective.

The defence circles are very small. There are so many transfers that almost everyone knows everyone and most of us have memories with each other. Even when we move away, we see each other grow up, go to colleges, get jobs, get married, have families and go on vacations. We never really lose touch with the emotions we had when we were posted together. We reply to or comment on each other's social media updates like we still live around each other. So anything that a person goes through seems like a personal experience. 

Day before yesterday i woke up to news of an encounter in Handwara where 5 security personnel lost their lives. It was only in the afternoon that i read the news properly and realised that one of the martyrs was the husband of someone from my friend circle. And suddenly, all her life moments that she shared flashed before my eyes. Her photos with him, her vacations, their marriage, her childlike joy in the snow when she went to meet him. This news was too difficult to fathom. Specially because i always thought she had one of the best love stories. I looked at them and used to be so amazed at how people find each other. What a cute couple it was. I opened her profile sometimes to see their pictures and i almost messaged her once to ask how one finds a soulmate that fits so perfectly. I'm heart broken, i can't even imagine what she must be going through. Today i saw the guard of honour that was given to them and when i saw the name under the flag, i choked. To know that the person inside that coffin is someone you know just breaks your heart into a million pieces. And i didn't even know him personally. To think of what his family and friends must be going through, especially his wife whom he married just 2.5 years ago makes my heart sink.

All this made me reflect on the number of headlines i've read over the past few years of encounters and the lives we lost at the borders, in insurgency hit areas and the disturbed interiors. I did some basic searching and found out that we've lost 740 Security Forces Personnel in J&K since 2008 and 292 state and paramilitary personnel between just september 2018 and August 2019. According to an article written in 2018-"In the last 13 years, Army lost a soldier on duty every third day." That's one husband, father, son, brother, friend lost every third day! It takes the martyrdom of a known person for me to realise this. 

My friends from the defence circle are very angry that no one really cares and that no one posts about these things unless it's about celebrities. I know it is impossible to grieve for every death, but honestly as far as the security forces are concerned it really should be a bigger deal. I was talking to my friend in the Army about this incident and he said "Happens all the time for us, for us they aren't numbers, they're mostly people we know...It's ok. It's what we signed up for". And i was thinking, yes our soldiers are prepared to die but do they have to?NO. They shouldn't have to, specially from problems that are solvable. Yes, the J&K issue has a solution and it's going to take grit and political will to do so. Countries turn around their fate in 20 years, it shouldn't take 70 years to solve a problem. It's like we're revolving around the same issues for years and years in loop. Something that's stuck for so long is not a problem, it's irresponsibility. Specially the lives we lose in insurgency and naxalism hit areas almost everyday that go unnoticed because it's the paramilitary and not the armed forces. 

At first i was lost, then sad and then just angry. It's been 2 days now and slowly i'm able to think straight and put things into perspective. I'm imagining walls of remembrance in cities and villages where we add a brick in the name of our soldiers from that area who lose their lives in the line of duty. The higher or wider the wall, the more thankful we are and the more we respect our forces. Or a dedicated area where we plant and nurture trees in their names. The greener the forest, the higher we hold our soldiers in regard.

Here's hoping that in the years to come we're able to create an environment in our country where soldiers are looked upto like they are in many other countries and every life lost seems like a personal loss. "No nation is perfect, one has to make it perfect", said someone in a famous Indian movie. Our soldiers are always prepared to give their lives for the nation, we should always be prepared that they don't have to.

My friend in the Army said death is easy, its the ones left behind who suffer. And i remembered how strong military families are especially the wives. A family that has a soldier has two warriors, first the person who is serving and second their spouse. 

To Maj. Anuj Sood and his wife and my friend Aakriti. You are both our heroes.