10 Things About Indian Soldiers In Siachen That’ll Make You Thank Them For The Life You Are Living

[Techy]

10 Things About Indian Army Soldiers In Siachen That’ll Make You Thank Them For The Life You Are Living
(Wanted to share this interesting and well written article! Please no Indo-Pak trolling on this, lets salute the brave solders.)

“Quartered in snow, silent to remain, when the bugle calls, they shall rise and march again.” These are the words that are etched on a stone memorial at the Indian Army base camp in Siachen – the world’s highest and coldest active war zone. For over 17 hellishly freezing years, the Indian army has held the position strong, keeping our treacherous enemy Pakistan from claiming the glacier. The sun doesn’t sustain life here, kerosene does. The bullet doesn’t kill here, the cold does, but our brave hearts take all of this face front and never back down. Here are 10 things about the Indian army soldiers in Siachen that will make you thank them for the life you are living.

1) Sometimes Indian soldiers, as many as 6 at a time, have to live in igloos made of fiberglass panels no bigger than the size of a king-size bed. The only way to keep themselves warm is through small kerosene stoves. The smoke fills the igloos so much so that it colours everything including even a man’s spit. Hot water bottles don’t stay hot for long, sleeping doesn’t happen at night, and a relay mechanism is set up to exchange frozen rifles with defrosted ones.

2) Since temperatures usually dip well below ?50 °C, touching anything made of metal with bare hands can cause severe frost bites within seconds. Guns and other artillery are only operated while wearing anti-frostbite gloves. Even the sweat in the gloves freezes to become ice, sometimes leading to finger amputations. Soldiers brought down to base camp often suffer problems of hearing, eyesight and memory loss because of prolonged use of oxygen masks.

3) Speech problems, nausea, sleep deprivation and depression are some of the most common problems our soldiers face in the winters. Despite such difficulties, the Indian Army holds two-thirds of the glacier and controls two of the three most important passes including the highest motorable pass in the world called Khardungla Pass.

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4) Fresh food is a rare luxury at Siachen. Fruits freeze to become as hard as cricket balls and potatoes can’t be dented even with hammers. Getting the food at an altitude of 21,000 feet is a task in itself. Indian-made Cheetah helicopters often push well past their boundaries to drop in canned food. And if, God forbid, the weather is bad, a lot of food is swallowed by the snow.

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© ggpht (dot) com
5) Fear of death from freezing is so much so that the soldiers take bath only once a month, that too in specially designed commodes by DRDO. Drinking water is obtained from melting ice on stoves, and since washing is also a rarity, 14 pairs of thermal socks are allotted per soldier for a 90-day posting.

6) A shining example of courage overcoming all difficulties, the Indian Army has also built the world`s highest helipad in Siachen at a place called Sonam, which is approximately 21,000 feet above sea level. This pad is used to bring in supplies all year round.

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[Techy]

7) Due to ghastly winds at 18,000 feet, mortar shelling becomes extremely unpredictable, sometimes falling where least expected. Rifles are thawed repeatedly over kerosene stoves and machine guns are dipped in boiling water to keep them from jamming. But soldiers fall prey to the camouflaging snow sheets and unexpected avalanches and blizzards more often than to the shelling.

8) Facing almost 35 feet of snow and blizzards year round, the soldiers not only protect the territory from enemies but also, manually maintain (with shovels and light machinery) the post which otherwise will be swallowed by the accumulating snow if left unmanned.

9) The snow storms can last well up to more than half a month and the place has about 10 percent of the oxygen that plains have. While even professional climbers dread climbing in bad weather, our soldiers are on their feet, patrolling the area 365 days a year.

10) Since the Indian Army holds the heights and Pakistani Army holds the low areas around Siachen, the situation is such that the Indian Army cannot go down and the Pakistani Army cannot come up. Nobody can win this war.

Despite these extreme hostilities, the Indian Army has never experienced a shortage of volunteers to serve in Siachen. A heartfelt salute to these brave hearts!

 

[The_Sidewinder]

@Techy
Whenever In the past, I went to the fun cinema to watch a movie, Just before starting the movie, they would play "Jana Gana Mana" our national anthem paying a fitting tribute to our brave soldiers serving at the highest battleground. I would like every1 else just stand up & salute those soldiers automaticaly. They make us proud by serving at those harsh conditions where they make the supreme sacrifice time & again. [HASHTAG]#Salute[/HASHTAG] to our heroes.

 

[Aarush]

Salute to our brave soldiers......My younger bro too served there...

A glacier with deepest crevasses
Men reconnaissance tied to one rope
To guard upon these mountain masses
Far from families, on glacier slope...

With Soltoro Pass towards its West
Runs a deadly snowbound harsh prison
And The Karakoram in the East
It is the glacier called Siachen

There is posted our Indian Soldiers
Locally known as Valley of Roses
But so harsh, is more the country’s curse
A Valley of Death as it poses..

For night and day they must guard this spot
In gears so cumbersome they wear
Why citizens do not give a thought
Each night we sleep is because they dare

Isolation, bad weather, blizzards
The nastiest place on earth to go
Awesome, vast, avalanche-prone hazards
Pickets in scooped out crevice of snow

When one steps aside for nature’s call
He does encounter enemy fire
And in a misstep if he does fall
Body’s untraced for rites of pyre

And though this may break out the smiles
Times, guys are airlifted back to base
A soldier once thought he had the piles
But was a bullet in sordid case

Each team or men who do glacier stints
Recoil from narrating any bit
Their memories impaired, gives us hints
That tenures on Siachen needs grit

In snowbound mountains far from their homes
Some dear one’s mail received makes it right
They gather to share news in solar domes
Warming meals, heating hope, through frostbite

Days dawn midst sounds of machine gun
Ice films, freeze on faces at nights
Each day’s ammo response given
Such is avalanched, snowflurried plights

Mercury is forever sub zero
Fifty degrees minus, burning fast, fuels
Each soldier though a national hero
Doubles as soldier and soldier mules

For, stockpile if not airdropped
Is duly carried upon their backs
And when in bad weather airlifts stopped
They plod soldiering, with heavy rucksacks

Three nations knotted at hot-bed cold
All three suffering in aimless context
Far better fared silk traders of old
When place wasn’t machine gun armed, vexed

Unshaved, unbathed, for what to celebrate
Each day, each night routine so fraught,
With either death or frostbite the rate
Headcounts tallying, keeps the mind taut

All days seems same, yet, seem a whole year
Snowed in, snowed buried, hostile Siachen
Each step miscalculated costs dear
Brave volunteer’s choice is this prison