Swept Away in Service

The Sikkim landslide reminds us that for a soldier, whether taken by war or by nature, the meaning of sacrifice remains unchanged.

I never knew them. Never shared a meal or a laugh with any of them under the tin roof of a remote outpost. But when you wear the uniform, some connections are formed without introduction. Every soldier becomes your brother. And when the mountains take one of your own, it leaves behind a silence no words can bridge.

On June 1, in Chhaten, North Sikkim, a landslide came down without warning, swift and unfeeling. It was not a battlefield, but it may as well have been. After all, nature, too, has its own theatre of war. The rescue teams had been working without pause, threading through treacherous terrain and relentless weather in search of six personnel still missing. Four were been pulled out alive, battered but breathing. The bodies of three others were recovered.

HavaldarLakhwinder Singh. Lance Naik Munish Thakur. Abhishek Lakhera - a porter by designation, a civilian, but in every way one of us. All were on duty, posted on those icy, high ridgelines where the silence is deceptive, where the sky is too close and the earth shifts without notice. These men were not preparing to dodge bullets. No one signs up for the Armed Forces thinking the mountain itself will be the adversary. But sometimes, it is.

In fact, you learn early in the Army that not all enemies carry rifles. I have spent years in the North-East and am all too familiar with the cold that bites before dawn. The hills swaddled in mist. The Villages that feel carved from another century. It is a landscape that demands respect, and often more than that. It demands pieces of you. Over time, the place works its way under your skin. The land, the people, the rhythm of stillness - they stay with you long after the posting ends.

That is why this hurts even if I never shook their hands with these three men. The loss is not just of life, but of men who stood watch where few others ever go. Men who took on a job knowing the risks, and did it anyway. That is what service is. Not glamour, not glory. Just the quiet choice, made over and over again, to keep standing. Even when the ground itself gives way beneath your feet.

These men were not in the spotlight. There were no bugles, no ceremonial parades held in their honour after they passed away. They were quiet men, fulfilling their duty in a harsh, often overlooked part of the country far from their homes, and far from the daily consciousness of a grateful nation.

I think of their families in this hour of grief and bereavement, the ones they left behind with silences that stretch across dinner tables, with empty chairs and questions that may never find resolution.

I hope those families know that their loved ones were where soldiers are meant to be - on the frontier, bearing the weight of vigilance and prepared for whatever might come. That is the life we choose in uniform. It does not always come with glory, but it always carries dignity.

It is likely that their names will not appear in newspaper headlines tomorrow. There may be no televised tributes or national addresses. But within our units, in the quiet rituals of remembrance, and in the oral traditions passed between comrades, they will live on. Their absence will not be drowned out by the noise of the world. Their silence carries its own resonance.

Today, I do not speak in my capacity as an officer. I speak as a brother - as someone who understands what it means to rise before dawn, to put on the uniform, to prepare for a job that demands everything and guarantees little. And I make this promise that we will remember them.

For these men are not just entries on a list nor abstractions or statistics. They were soldiers who were swept away while serving, while standing guard, while fulfilling the oath that binds us all.

This time, it was not war that claimed them. It was the mountain which was unpredictable, impassive and lethal in its own right. But that does not change the truth that they all died in the line of duty. Because for a soldier, whether death comes by bullet or by landslide, the meaning of farewell remains unchanged. You are taken while serving. And that is how heroes leave us. Jai Hind!

(The writer is an Army veteran.)