Far away in snowbound Ladakh, beyond the cobalt blue Pangong Tso, stands a memorial inscribed with words from Lord Macaulay’s poem, Horatius. How can man die better/ Than facing fearful odds/ For the ashes of his fathers/ And the temples of his gods. The memorial commemorates the heroic stand of Major Shaitan Singh, PVC, and the brave Ahirs of C Company, 13 Kumaon Regiment. In the dark days of 1962, Major Singh and his men, grossly outnumbered, were brutally massacred by the Chinese, and died following the orders, “You will fight till the last man and the last bullet”. It is this enigma of war — what makes some run, others stand their ground, and a remarkable few display astonishing courage — that Rachna unravels in her first book. When Penguin Books thought of this project, Rachna, an award-winning journalist and Army wife, fit the bill. “Men in olive green have been around me for a lifetime — my father and brother are proud paratroopers and my husband is an engineer,” she … [Read more...] about Roll of honour