Love, War, And Letters, A Memoir Of A Soldier's Wife Waiting For The Call That Said 'The War Is Over'

 

 

More than two decades after the Kargil War, tales of courage and sacrifice still echo through every home that once sent a soldier to the front lines. But there is a quieter battlefield, one that often goes unnoticed – the living rooms, hospital wards, and lonely dinner tables of army wives. One such voice is Shikha Saxena, an author of Nation First and a proud wife of an Army veteran Captain Akhilesh Saxena. She recounts her journey not just as a soldier’s wife but as a witness to war’s profound emotional wounds. A Marriage With the March of War Shikha had only married Captain Saxena for two months when war clouds began gathering over Kargil. She was still unpacking boxes and dreaming of building a home. But fate had different plans. "My mother warned me about the hardships one has to face marrying an army person," Shikha recalls. But her heart knew no apprehension. She was genuinely fascinated by the uniform, the pride, and the man behind it. The two met on matrimony and got engaged within eight days and married in a traditional Hindu ceremony. "I told him about the marriage eight days before the day.

 

Soldiers don't even know how these ladies find solutions to every problem they face within their families," mentions the proud wife. Their time together was brief as Captain Saxena was ordered to report to Kashmir, one of the hardest postings in the armed forces. “The orders came during a get-together. Kashmir is beautiful, but not when your husband is posted there. I started repacking everything that I unpacked just two weeks back," she wrote in her book. It wasn't just the packing, but emotional turmoil. Friends and family members whispered words that hurt her. She was called unlucky for her husband, "As soon as Sita came into Ram's life, he went into exile. I was tagged as an unlucky wife," she recalls. She returned to her parental home and started working to divert her mind from the constant updates coming from the war zone.

 

On May 14, 1999, the headlines on every news channel screamed about missing officers, among them was Captain Saurabh Kalia. The news spread like fire. The army wives' network confirmed to Shikha that something was brewing at the border. The peaks of Kargil, where Indian troops marched towards their military outposts. The Indian Army inducted the 56 Mountain Brigade of the 8 Mountain Division into Dras for eviction operations in the sector. A few operations failed, and the brigade realised they were not fighting against a handful of militants but the full-fledged Pakistani Army. It was then that the Indian Army included the Artillery Brigade in the conflict. This was all known to Shikha, but what she didn't know was that Captain Saxena was leading the convoy of artillery guns of the 1889 Light Regiment of NH1 and was heading toward Dras, the heart of war.

 

He didn't tell Shikha that his regiment had gotten orders to move to LOC. "This was the time to fulfil the pledge he had taken at the time of his training at the Indian Military Academy, IMA." Eighteen kilometers from Dropadi Kund in Dras, the commander of the artillery brigade took a meeting with the officers for an update. Six attempts by the Indian Army and Air Force on Tololing failed. The conditions were serious. Captain Saxena, who was part of 2 Rajputana Rifles for the attacks at Tololing as an Artillery Forward Officer. Shikha mentions in her book that soldiers faced sickness because of the lack of oxygen at a height of 16,000 feet. Most assaults took place in the cold at night. Captain Saxena was part of the main assault team and directed the massive firing of 120 artillery guns on Tololing when Indian got its first victory in the Kargil War.

 

This was followed by attacks on Hump and Three Pimples. "While soldiers were fighting on the LOC, army officers' wives were working for the welfare of families. They gathered their courage and fought against adversities," Shikha writes. When the Letter Came Like Last Words In a particularly weak moment, Captain Saxena wrote his last letter to his wife. In her book Shikha writes that these are the moments when a soldier behaves like a normal human being and becomes nostalgic, depressed, and emotional. During the assault at Three Pimples, four officers from 2 Rajputana Rifles made the supreme sacrifice, and enemy shelling and splinter hit Captain Saxena as well. He walked for eight hours with bullet injuries and remained unconscious for three days at Srinagar Base Hospital.

 

"He was not the man I married. He said disability was the small price he paid for the freedom of our country. But he was broken by the loss of his men," narrates Shikha. "Even after being hit by enemy artillery splinters, he survived to tell the tale by the grace of God," she writes. Among those who shared war days with Captain Saxena at the battlefield were Colonel Ravindranath, Major Acharya, Major Vivek Gupta, Captain Vijayant Thapar, and Captain Vikram Batra. All of them were martyred while fighting the war. Carrying the War Back Home Shikha writes that when Captain Saxena returned home from the war, he carried painful memories of losing his men and severe injuries with him. One led to permanent disability. "He was bedridden with a few plasters.

 

Looking like black skin on a skeleton," she narrates. His parents and Shikha met Captain Saxena in the Delhi hospital. He shared truths of war with his wife while in the hospital. "He could not sleep for nights because the pain was so intense. Akhilesh visited disabled soldiers in the hospital. It hit him so hard to see their misery. He decided to overcome his grief and help others. Affection and admiration from civilians help these soldiers forget their pain." Shikha declares.