Indian Army - all weather saviours

Okay, now again I am a little behind times. But recently I came across a documentary by NDTV about the Indian Army expedition team of 18 who were at Mt. Everest, trying to scale its heights, when the Nepal earthquake struck. The earthquake triggered a major avalanche engulfing many teams at the mountain and killing many instantly. By God's grace, the Indian Army team survived, although some were injured and all were badly shaken. But when they managed to reach the base camp, they saw it was completely destroyed.

Although they were completely shaken, they did not waste any time. They were up and about in minutes, setting tents, rescuing others, providing medical aid and bringing together all supplies that were scattered all across. All this when the tremors were still being felt. The expedition team continued their support all through the rescue mission that continued for days after and stayed back later to clean the base camp of all the scattered waste. Then they returned.

Can any of us imagine doing anything like that? Coming out alive from a terrible avalanche, running towards the base camp to find there is nothing left, with tremors still being felt, we would have run towards the nearest help post - gotten out of there as fast as we could. 

But what makes the Indian Army different? Maybe our expectations. It could be a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a landslide or a destroyed transport system in strife torn areas - Indian army is dispatched to do the 'needful'. Whatever that is. Were they trained for it? Is it part of their official job description? Do we even ask? Ever? 

And yet there are army veterans on hunger strike for the logically correct One Rank, One Pension. Prime Minister did not say anything about it in today's Mann ki Baat. Can we imagine what we would do if the army went on strike? But we needn't worry about that. They have been trained in - 'Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die' (Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Lord Tennyson). 

Dear PM, please give the army their due. Even the police force. Those who put their lives on stake for us, deserve to be the highest paid in the country.

PS: I coulnd't locate the entire video of the documentary - but some of the snippets are available at the link below:

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/operation-everest-summiteers-to-saviours/the-earthquake-that-shook-the-everest-base-camp/378660