Their stories have almost been forgotten, but their pain and hardships linger on. The exemplary courage Indian soldiers showed in pushing back the enemy in Kargil in 1999 today manifests itself in the determination with which they have put together their lives again. CARE TODAY adopted 34 bravehearts rendered unfit for military duty by the war and granted each Rs 3 lakh to acquire assets that would ease their return to civilian life. Here are the stories of two of them.

Rifleman Digamber Prasad
10 JAK RIFLES

On July 10, 1999, Rifleman Digambar Prasad, now 28, was on duty consolidating Indian positions in the Mashkoh Valley. Having driven the Pakistani intruders from their snowy entrenchment, the Indian soldiers expected retaliatory firing to increase, but were still caught unawares when a shell fired by a Pakistani artillery regiment landed close to where they were stationed. All Prasad now remembers is a deafening blast before he passed out. When he regained consciousness in hospital he found that splinters had pierced his head and injured his spinal cord. When CARE TODAY first met him in September 1999, the brave soldier was struggling to live. He was paralysed below the waist and was expected to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

A soldier's fortitude pulled him through. Prasad left the army in May 2001. Despite lengthy treatment he still struggles with an almost non-functional urinary system. On his return home to Manpur Deora village in Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh, he decided to use the Rs 3 lakh granted to him by CARE TODAY to build a house. Construction has now been completed and Prasad and his family will soon move in. He knows the difficulties that he will face. "There are challenges ahead, but my soldier's spirit will see me through," says Prasad optimistically. He is still waiting for the army to clear his pension and is keen to find a government job. The new house is therefore a big burden off his shoulders.

Havildar Japendra N. Brahma
13 MECHANISED INFANTRY

Japendra Nath Brahma vividly remembers that fateful day on May 19, 1999 when he was part of an army column engaged in a cordon and search exercise under Operation Rakshak in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district. Such operations are common in Kashmir and that day was no different. Suddenly, the militants triggered off an improvised explosive device that was to change Brahma's life, as also those of several of his colleagues from the 13 Mechanised Infantry regiment. Brahma lost his right eye and hearing on his left ear. Besides, he sustained severe splinter injuries on his left leg. After a year's treatment at the Military Base Hospital in Delhi and a six-month stay at the Artificial Limbs Centre in Pune, he is able to walk with crutches.

Brahma left the army early last year and returned to his Thuribari village in Assam's Kokrajhar district. "I have no regrets. What happened to me was in response to the call of duty for the nation," says Brahma, who had also served in the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1986 to 1988. The 38-year-old former havildar has charted out his course of action. He has land on which he plans to grow rice, while considering other businesses too. That is why he decided that a tractor would be of tremendous help. On January 11, 2002, Brahma became the proud owner of a tractor. It was handed over to him by CARE TODAY in Guwahati. That day he drove home to a new life in a new vehicle.