Next chapter: War heroes

BANGALORE: Medals flaunted their pridefilled chests, while every word uttered had a story of extraordinary courage and respect. Though it looked like a carnival of sorts, it was a time in the year, where everything else takes a backseat, and only ‘heroes’ were spoken about.And thanks to a few ‘sensible’ decisions taken by Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, the next generation of the country could soon be reading about these heroes.“We would set up a committee to try and include a chapter on war heroes who have laid down their lives in all high school and primary school text books,” he said. Speaking on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of the Kargil Victory, he also announced that the Honorarium for World War fighters would be increased to Rs 5,000 from August 15.In the morning on Tuesday, Flags of Honour, Exservicemen, National Cadet Corps (NCC) and school students held a ‘Walkathon’ towards the site of the National Military Memorial (NMM) on Chowdiah Road to pay homage and celebrate the lives of those ‘who gave up their today, for our tomorrow’.The Chief Minister added that an encouragement reward of Rs 1 lakh would be given to those officers from Karnataka who stand first in their respective defence training academies. Heeding to a request made by Capt Ganesh Karnik (Retd) on behalf of the ex-servicemen community, the CM said that all the three significant days of the armed forces — Kargil Diwas, Vijay Diwas and Flag Day — would be celebrated in every district of the state to encourage youngsters and also entrusted the former to coordinate activities for the success of the same.The site of the event was raining former and current serving men of the armed forces.Sporting medals from their past glorious years of having served the nation, former service personnel met and unified their respects in front of the ‘Unknown Soldier’, to pay homage to all the martyrs who laid down their lives during the Kargil War.Added to this, a cheque of Rs 53,593 was given to 75-year-old S Penchamma, wife of late Gunner S Penchaliah, who died in the Indo-Pak war. She had requested Flags of Honour to provide financial aid to meet her medical expenses.“Our foundation focuses on addressing issues and concerns faced by the armed forces veterans and their families and we are happy to assist Penchalamma whose husband was martyred protecting the nation,” said MP Rajeev Chandrashekar.