Oh no, last words of India’s bravest of the brave

CHANDIGARH: As a cadet at the National Defence Academy, Puneet Nath Datt was an irrepressible young man. His squadron needed some bricks for a project and none was available. So, Datt jumped over the compound wall of the NDA Commandant’s bungalow and got the bricks from some construction underway there, despite warnings from his peers that he was courting big-time trouble.Some years later, the 6 feet 2 inch Second Lieutenant scaled a 6-foot compound wall of a threestorey house in Srinagar's Nowshera (Soura) locality and tackled a trio of Pakistani terrorists alone. He laid down his life in that battle shot fatally through the chink in the armour: under the eye and through the cheek that was exposed under the bulletproof patka and just above the bullet-proof jacket. The terrorist's bullet was fired from less than a few yards.
A young man’s faith in his invincibility had come to grief. He had disregarded death with a disdain. “His last words on July 20, 1997, around noon were: ‘Oh No’. These were not words of remorse or of regret at facing death but the disbelief of an incredibly courageous young officer who could not believe that there was a bullet that had his name written on it, that an enemy could ever bring him down. His last words echoed the dying thought coursing through a brain that a bullet lodged firmly within: how could this happen to me,” his then Brigade Commander of 70 Infantry Brigade, told TOI.
For his commando actions displaying the highest order of gallantry, leading from the front and fighting spirit, 2nd Lt. Datt was posthumously awarded India’s highest gallantry award, the Ashok Chakra (AC), by then President of India on Republic Day, 1998. Dicky, as he was nicknamed, was all of 24 years. His legacy resonates strongly 23 years later. On Monday, his course mates released a video of his days at the NDA in the early 1990s while his deeds echoed on multiple and poignant social media posts through India with Army HQs also releasing a commemorative post.
The award of the AC was the first of the two highest gallantry awards that Datt’s battalion, the 1/11 Gurkha Rifles, would be honoured with. Two years later, during the Kargil War, another young officer, Lt Manoj Pandey, led from the front destroying three Pakistani bunkers on Khalubar ridge on July 3, 1999, and was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously. The brace of two highest awards entitled the 1/11 Gurkha Rifles to earn the rarest of the rare distinctions as the 'Bravest of the Brave' units of the Army.
Datt had donned his late father, Maj Pramod Datt’s Gurkha hat when he was just six because he loved dressing up as an Army officer. Ever since, he was determined to join his father’s battalion when he grew up. A spirit of invincibility permeated his soul and he felt nothing could touch him when he went to Kashmir to fight in tricky counter-terror operations. His then Brigade Commander was there at the scene of action when he laid down his life for the nation, doing what he loved best.