Escapades of a PSU Executive - IX Home they brought her warrior dead.

Escapades of a PSU Executive – IX

This is an imaginary series of the experiences of an idiotic PSU executive, working in a ‘Global fortune 500’ company. Please note that any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

Home they brought her warrior dead. 

Sudden and painful death is an ever-present eventuality in a soldier’s life. How does a soldier or his family members handle an incident like the death of a near and dear one? Strange though it may sound, the men in uniform had devised a way to tackle death within certain norms. The way the defense services handles death on duty is one of the most exalted parts of life in the defense services. 

The Idiot witnessed death during duty of many defense service members and here he will make an attempt to describe the situations and his understanding of the events. 

Incident – I:

A young major reported for duty with his wife and child after returning from leave. After landing in Mohanbari Airport they proceeded towards their unit. They were accompanied by two escort vehicles one in front and one behind. Near to a place named Doom Dooma the vehicle in which the major was traveling with his family got blown off by a landmine. 

Interestingly, the front portion of the vehicle was severely damaged while the back portion was not. This resulted in the Major and his driver dying in a mangled condition with the vehicle parts. However, his wife and child remained completely unharmed and required only first aid. 

The Idiot heard about the incident on the first day itself. One day afterward the Armed forces carried his dead body in a coffin to Mohanbari Airport to be loaded in an Indian Airlines aircraft and sent to Delhi, from where it will be taken to his hometown. 

The soldiers were wearing a different uniform and made a regal march to the aircraft with the coffin. Once the coffin was loaded they came back after saluting smartly. 

The Idiot was surprised to see one Jawan crying in grief on his return trip. As long as he was carrying the coffin he was not permitted to cry. But once the coffin was loaded, he was free to express his emotions. In the defense services – in the face of death – you cannot express your emotions. That is not an order but a norm. 

The Idiot waited near to the entry ladder of the Aircraft to see how his wife and child would be looking after the tragedy. Someone pointed out the lady walking to the Aircraft with a small child. The lady was wearing dark goggles and walked towards the aircraft slowly and steadily. She maintained an expressionless demeanor and did not display any nervous breakdown or emotion. She walked on her own and no one held her. 

The Idiot felt a tremendous respect for the soldier’s wife. She was a young woman maybe not even in her thirties. Just one day back, she has seen her husband’s mangled body and must have heard his groans as he embraced death. Still she retained the composure and strength to walk to the aircraft without anyone helping her. That is called strength. It seems in defense services not only the soldier but all people related to him have to develop a tremendous inner strength. 

Incident-II: 

As the Idiot worked in Chabua, he observed the fighter aircrafts taking off and landing. Seeing the extreme maneuvers in the air he was awed. He thought that the people doing these in the sky must be Godlike. 

However, as he interacted with the pilots in their normal life – one emotion hit him again and again. Once out of their aircraft – they were the most routine and common persons. There is no difference between a pilot coming home after flying for the whole day and an office worker. Like all, he drives his vehicle to the station canteen. He buys some provisions for his children – a packet of crayons, maybe a jar of pickles, a loaf of bread, etc. 

Once home, his children cluster around him while his wife goes into the kitchen to make a cup of tea with some snacks. Life out of the fighter aircraft is mundane and simple like a normal person’s life. 

Sometimes, the Idiot tried to pry out the feelings of the daredevil pilots who flew fighter aircraft and helicopters. However, most pilots were basically very measured with their words. They rarely speak negative things or discuss the risky work that they do. Any question on their extreme work environment is stonewalled with a pleasant but simple response. 

One day the Idiot asked a Pilot who was a Squadron leader, “How does it feel to fly a fighter aircraft”? For once the man was slightly open. He said, “Oh it is like playing a computer game, only you do not get a second chance in case you make a mistake. I know that and hence every time I go out for duty, I properly take leave of my wife”. 

In a cheeky mood, the Idiot asked him, “So you kiss Madam, every morning before reporting for duty”. He replied with a smile, “How I take leave of my wife is none of your business”. 

One day he did not return. The Idiot still remembered the day like it was yesterday.

It was a chilly but sunny day in winter with clear skies. Right from the early morning, there was heavy flying and the sound of the aircrafts taking-off reverberated all throughout the day. In the last sortie, one aircraft crashed. 

The Airforce had a protocol for such cases. They will declare that one aircraft is missing. It is declared as missing till such time the wreckage is not found or body is not recovered. 

Bad news had a way of traveling fast. Within seconds a chilly stillness engulfed the whole station. It was like the mist of death has descended on the station. The Idiot went to the station canteen and found that no shopkeeper was playing the radio. In the small school inside the station, although it was lunch time, no child was playing. 

In the nursery school, a few toddlers were sitting in a circle near their teacher on the grass and singing songs. They were too small to understand, what has happened.

An aircraft accident is a major headache for the Idiot. Any accident or near-miss meant a very stringent inspection by a high-level inquiry committee of the Airforce. Although not generally done fuel quality might also become a part of the investigation and it was very worrying. 

Even if the Airforce does not consider fuel quality as a part of the investigation there are certain set norms of the aviation service of Teliya Oil. Once an aircraft accident is declared or known, the storage tank from which supplies of fuel had been made has to be sealed and quarantined. Samples are to be taken and sent for testing. When the sample passes the stringent quality control tests, only then the storage tank can be reopened and reused. Additionally, the full report had to be intimated to the logistics section of the Airforce. 

Once the wreckage is located and death on duty is confirmed, there are again certain procedures to be observed. 

The Station Commander and other senior officials along with their wives will make a visit to the house of the deceased officer. All of the officers will be in full uniform. The first official news will be broken by the Station Commander to the wife of the dead pilot. 

The role of the Station Commander’s wife is also very important. In fact, the wife of the Station Commander is the head of – AFWWA (Air Force Women’s Welfare Association) and she has a traditional role to perform in such cases. She will be the main elder sister or counselor during that period. 

The wife of the soldier will have to bear the news of the death of her husband, with maturity and calmness. Most of the time, the lady will be a young one, maybe in her twenties. As the senior officials break the news (Maybe she was already aware by then) – most of them maintain their stiff demeanor and dignity. 

This is a tremendous pressure on a soldier’s wife. She cannot cry out loudly or become hysterical. The other ladies will start taking care of the children and their immediate needs. Many of these widows lose their appetite and stop having any food or drink. The other ladies take care of them and someone stays for the night in the house. 

The wreckage and body of the pilot is initially taken to the civil hospital for the death certificate. Once the death certificate is issued a team of Airforce Police go out in white ritualistic uniform and bring back the dead body of the pilot in an open white coloured vehicle. The vehicle will be escorted by a team of officers with a different marching pattern. 

Once the body is brought back, it is kept in the main station building and arrangements made for transfer to the pilot’s home town or village. 

In case the pilot belongs to a strong family with educated family members, then his family members might come down to Chabua to escort the body home. 

However, the pilot who died belonged to a farming family from Rohtak. His father died when he was very young. His elder brother took care of him. His elder brother was a semi-literate farmer and it was not possible for him to come to Chabua to escort his dead brother’s body. 

The Airforce took care of every requirement by activating the nearest defense services unit or the district administration in Rohtak. 

Till the dead body is transferred back home along with the family members, the station will go into a phase of mourning. No parties or get-togethers will be held. The body of the pilot along with his family members will be escorted to the airport by senior officials of the station. 

After departure, the station will again go back to normal life. 

Interestingly, during or immediately after the incident no one will discuss about the accident. Everyone will be maintaining a stiff upper lip and no loose comments are passed. The inquiry report is kept in strict confidence and shared only on a need to know basis. 

However, in this one case, certain facts came out later. The pilot could have ejected from his aircraft. He had time for that. He waited to ensure that the aircraft crashed in an unpopulated place to avoid human casualties. In fact, the officer in the ATC repeatedly told him to eject, right from the moment things went wrong. In the process of saving lives on the ground, he was too late and died in the crash. 

Sometimes, the Idiot wonders – how do these young widows tackle life in the initial few months? Time will heal the wound and maybe life will take on a different hue afterward. But how do they tackle the first news in a strange place with no relatives nearby? Unfortunately, the Idiot never had a scope of interacting with a war widow and hence can only imagine.

Rajputs had a martial tradition and their folk music describes a war widow’s pain in a song:

Neither am I dead
Nor am I living
For my disease is
The pain of separation
That can never be fulfilled. 

For the Idiot, these experiences that Teliya Oil provided, were surreal and has given him a broader perspective of life. Minor things seem irrelevant when he sees the bigger picture. 

In another organization named Border Roads, dead bodies were not returned to the family members. 

The Idiot interacted with the Border Roads Organization in course of his duty. This organization worked in really remote locations and their work is the toughest. It is said that enemy nations respected this force and called this organization – The Rat Force – because they can build roads and tunnels in any terrain. 

Most Border Roads posting are in a harsh and remote territory. Till about one decade back, the Border Roads Organization never returned the dead bodies but cremated or buried them in the inaccessible terrain where the person worked and died. 

One widow of a Border Roads personal filed a case in the Court and got the necessary relief. Since then, dead bodies of Border Roads personal are returned with due honor to their families and villages. Strange though it may seem, the final decision to recover and send the dead body of Border Roads personal was taken sometime in Nov 2013. 

In many of his travels in the far-flung territory, the Idiots sees the small shrine or memorial of a soldier of the Border roads by the road-side. Sometimes the memorial only marks the spot from where the vehicle dropped from the steep hillside into the void below. The Idiot always gets down in such places and offers a small prayer to the departed soul with tears in his eyes. 

The Idiot gets teary-eyed because he remembers a poem he learned as a child: 

Then in the lull of midnight, gentle arms
Lifted him slowly down the slopes of death
Lest he should hear again the mad alarms
Of battle, dying moans, and painful breath.

And where the earth was soft for flowers, we made
A grave for him that he might better rest.
So, Spring shall come and leave it sweet arrayed,
And there the lark shall turn her dewy nest

Soldiers of the Border Roads slept in peaceful repose in the lap of Mother Nature, while their family members suffered their loss in silence somewhere far away. Their dead bodies can be found spread out all over the remote hills and valleys of our motherland. 

Goodbye for today. My next posting will be in November 2018.