I have been intently following the plight of the four missing U.S. Navy SEALS over the past weekend. Knowing that they were out there on the 4th of July just trying to survive in the mountains was pretty moving. As of today, one of them has been rescued, the bodies of two were recovered, and a fourth is still missing. I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who exhibit such extreme self-discipline and self-reliance. Soldiers in mountainous areas epitomize these qualities regardless of the rationale behind their orders.
The most brutal mountain fighting in the world has been along the India-Pakistan-China border at 19,000 ft. high on the Siachen Glacier, in the Karakoram. This classic 2003 article in Outside Magazine is essential reading for anyone who is a student of the absurdity of war:
Here’s what is beyond dispute: Never before have troops fought for such extended periods in such extreme physical conditions. At least twice a week a man dies, occasionally from bullets or artillery, but more often from an avalanche, a tumble into a crevasse, or a high-altitude sicknessperils usually faced only by elite climbers. Not surprisingly, the men who serve in the war regard it as the supreme challenge for a soldier.
“Minus 50 at 21,000 feetit’s beyond anything the human body is designed to endure,” an Indian officer on the Siachen told me. “This is the ultimate test of human willpower. It’s also an environmental catastrophe. Andno doubt about itthings can only get worse.”
…Life at such forward positions is brutal, and the Indians begrudgingly admit that the Pakistanis are tough customers. “They are sitting right underneath us on an 80-degree slope,” one Indian officer who was stationed above Tabish would tell me later. “We can throw grenades just like pebbles on top of them. It really takes guts to be there.” Captain Waqas Malik, 26, who served at Tabish, grimly described the hopeless feeling of such positions. “Once a ridge has been occupied,” he said, “you require a heart with the capacity of the ocean to accept the casualties you will incur in the taking of it.”
Time Magazine’s Asia edition recently reported that there are at least hopes that things may soon be changing:
…fresh peace proposals are making the rounds in New Delhi and Islamabad. The Pakistanis want to separate troop withdrawals from the glacier from the knottier issue of who owns Kashmir and, with it, Siachen. For its part, India wants hard evidencesuch as a map or a photograph in which the Pakistanis agree to the current front line as the borderbefore it will agree to demilitarize. One proposal, made by international environmentalists, is that the Siachen Glacier be declared a troop-free zone, with access permitted to mountaineering and scientific expeditions. The Indian army says that thanks to global warming, Siachen is receding at a rate of 10.5 m annually. International pressure is also being applied to solve the conflict, according to analysts in India. “The U.S. would like India to withdraw; they see it as a symbolically important step,” says Brahma Chellaney, a defense analyst at New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research. Outsiders know that reaching a final settlement on Kashmir will be hard, but hope that the two sides can at last negotiate on what might be solvable. “Siachen looms high in what can be achieved,” says Chellaney.
But honor is at stake. India and Pakistan each believe fervently in their own claim to Siachen. Both have spent blood and treasure to prove it, although the glacier’s strategic value is minimal. From his camp on the ice, Pakistani Captain Nazir watches an Indian party through binoculars. Despite the cease-fire, Nazir can’t relax. He is worried that an avalanche will sweep down on his encampment. “One came down on our toilet,” he says. “Thank God nobody was inside.” That would indeed be an awful way to go. But until India and Pakistan can find a way to trust each other, such a white death threatens the lives of young Indians and Pakistanis locked in a pointless war on the roof of the world.
Both Outside and Time have amazing photo-essays that can explain this conflict much better than any words.
Up at 5,653 m, Pakistani army Captain Ali Nazir watches the crows as they soar down from the spires of rock, gliding over the blue glacier. “I like the crows,” Nazir says. He points to his soldiers clustered around a fiberglass igloo. “Aside from us, they are the only living creatures we ever see.” And when the crows leave during the fierce, three-week-long winter blizzards? Then, says Nazir, “I cannot describe the absolute desolation I feel.”
