Meet Major DP Singh, a living example of the phoenix that a soldier truly is

India's peculiar security situation is such that its finest personnel often lay down their lives countering insurgency and other threats to the country's territorial integrity and its citizens. Sometimes, even in accidents, the worst of which unfolded on December 8th when Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 other personnel, including his wife, died in the chopper crash in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor.

In the winter session of the Parliament, the house was informed that the IAF and Army recorded 15 helicopter accidents in the last five years, in which 31 military personnel have been killed and 20 injured. While our men in olive green lay down their lives on the line of duty, there are countless others who live to tell the tale, nursing their crippling injuries for life. What happens to our soldiers injured on the battlefield and in the line of duty? When the body is limited but the spirit wants to fight on?

Major General Sunil Razdan, in 1994, at the peak of militancy in Kashmir, risked his life to rescue kidnapped women. In the daring operation, he lost movement below the waist becoming wheelchair-user for life, and yet led his days characterised by a soldier's resilience.

Lt Colonel Satish Malik's limb was blown off in a mine blast on India's frontiers with Pakistan. But would an amputated leg hold him back? He decided, no, and was determined to live his life to the fullest, setting off on bike rides, hikes, sports tournaments, inspiring the lives he touched.

Another such living legend is Major DP Singh, wounded in the 1999 Kargil war, losing his leg in the near-fatal mortar blast, living with shrapnel still embedded in his body, and PTSD. Age has only "gifted" him more challenges, as he calls it, in the form of Parkinsons disease. But he is more famous as the blade runner, Asia's first disabled person to skydive solo, and for his NGO the Challenging Ones.

He was selected as the ambassador by the Indian army for the year 2018, which was the year dedicated to soldiers who got disabled in the line of duty. Major DP Singh laughs off his injuries and chronic ailments even as he spends some days in debilitating pain. A soldier remains a fighter for life. And always puts the nation and his team first. These values stick even when the uniform is off. Major Singh's grit is well known and his desire to put others before himself has seen him nurture children and youth with disabilities at his NGO the challenging ones and help them live to their full potential.

When Covid gripped the world, Major DP Singh, while confined to his home, was at the helm of a programme that took the stories of resilience of veterans in the forces to the general public. At a time when many had lost their jobs, all was not well on the work front, mental health spiralled out of loneliness and confinement, Major DP Singh's show was a refreshing reminder that challenges are a part of life and should be taken with the soldier's spirit of Never Say Die. War injured veterans, aspiring officers whose dreams were cut short, veterans who struggled to set up their businesses in the civilian world all were part of this unique show designed to motivate others who may have found themselves in the pits due to a difficult and unprecedented year in 2020.

Major DP Singh is a living example of the phoenix that a soldier truly is.