Ramachandra Gaitonde was a soldier. He was born on 12 December 1937 in a small village, Varde near Kuldal, Sindhudurga district, Maharashtra. He was son of Vaman Gaitonde and Hirabai Gaitonde. He was the 3rd among his brother and sisters, he had 2 brother and 5 sisters. He had a dream of going to go in army from his childhood. He went in army on 22 August 1960 in the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. He served the service as an Indian soldier for 16 years and, got retired on 31 October 1976. He was happy that, his dream was fulfilled. He became surgeon and then he became cropper (post of Indian Army). His motivational idol was Svatantraveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. He says that “No one was like Savarkar and, no one will be like him.”.
He took his army training at Nashik. He took training of firing of army in Pokhran, Rajasthan living in Bikaner. As Pokhran is a desert area so, nobody comes there, so nobody will get injured. He got appointed in the 18 field regiment,69feild regiment, 216 medium regiment. His first war was against China in
1962 at Nathula pass, Sikkim which was won by India. He says that in the olden days the roads were not very well, the roads were very tiny. China attacked Indian soldier unexpectedly in the festival of Diwali before it, PM of China came to India and said the slogan of “Hindi, Chini Bhai Bhai”. In that time the PM was Pandit Jawallal Nehru the defence minister was V.K. Krishna Menon, and after that war he was removed and the new defence minister was Yashwantrao Chavan (former CM of Maharashtra). After that war he met P.J. Nehru and got a medal. His second war was against Pakistan in 1965 at Pathan, Sialkot, Lahore, Islamabad, Pakistan which was won by India and the PM of that time was Lal Bahdur Shastri and he made a slogan as “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan.” And the defence ministry was Yashwantarao Chavan. India won the whole part of Pakistan which were Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Sialkot. After the treaty between India and Pakistan in Tashkent, Russia and the part of Pakistan which was won by India was returned them back. And got a medal. His third, last and very critical war of his life was against Pakistan at Chumjudia centre, Jammu and Kashmir.in that war the people of Pakistan bate Indian soldier very badly and burnt many cars and destructed the properties before the war. In this war the regiment was broken and many Indian soldier died in it. Ramachandra Gaitonde was saved but he lost his eyes.
He got transfer and went to Hyderabad, then he went to Danapur (near Patna), then he went to Jalandhar(Punjab), then he went to Belgaon(Karnataka), then he went to record office of Nashik and he got retired and he came back to home. After coming to home he broke his old house which was built in 1627 and build a new house in 1977. There are many soldiers who are like Ramachandra Gaitonde. We should salute these types of soldiers.
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