Stress more fatal to soldiers than enemy

The incident in which an Army Major was killed by a soldier on Monday is shocking, to say the least. What angered the soldier was the scolding by the Major for using a mobile phone at the forward area where they were posted. It is standard practice to prohibit the use of such phones in forward areas. As reports suggest, when the Major tried to confiscate the phone and threatened the soldier that he would report the incident to his higher authorities, the sol­dier lost his cool and instantly killed the officer with his service gun. It is a case of rage which has no explanation, except that it exposes the lack of camarad-erie between the officer and the soldier.

Had it been a rare incident, it could have been dismissed as a stray case. But fratricide is becoming a common occurrence among the armed forces. In recent years, many uniformed personnel have lost their lives in this manner. The reasons are as silly as the one which prompted Naik Kathiresan of 19 Madras Regiment to shoot Major Shikhar Thapa, attached to the counter-insurgency unit of the Rashtriya Rifles. The incident occurred at Uri, which is one of the most sensitive posts on the Line of Control. Firing across the LoC had become a daily affair and the soldier should not have used the mobile phone, especially at night. In doing so, he was not only exposing himself to enemy fire but also endangering the lives of fellow
soldiers. If anything, it was a pointer to the lack of discipline. In Thapa’s killing, the country has lost a young officer and his three-month-old baby, her father.

Soldiers posted in border areas are under considerable stress. They face innumerable problems in their daily life. Enemy fire is a matter of death and life for them. Some of them also nurse a bad feeling against their officers who, they think, lead a luxurious life. Sometimes, these pent-up feelings burst into the open at the slightest provocation. Fratricide is not the only way in which such problems erupt. There have also been a growing number of incidents of suicide in the armed forces. True, there had been several incidents of fratricide reported from among the US soldiers posted in war zones like those in Afghanistan. It is essentially a psychological problem that needs to be tackled in the same manner. Stress-busters must become an essential component of life in the armed forces. Periodic assessment of the physical and mental ability of the soldiers and the officers is a pre-requisite for orderliness.