LUCKNOW: On at least four occasions, Captain Manoj Pandey had a close shave with death during Operation Vijay in Kargil, before he succumbed to enemy bullets while protecting our mother land. The martyr shared those stories in a letter written to his close pal Pawan Kumar Mishra a couple of weeks before he was killed in action on July 3, 1999, at the age of 24 years.
Mishra was pursuing his MSc from Lucknow University when Capt Pandey was serving his one-and-a-half-year stint in Siachen with 1/11 Gorkha Rifles battalion. Friends from Lucknow’s Sainik School, the two were in constant touch via letters.
