US invites dead trooper’s father to witness exercise with India

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, September 18

Almost 15 years after Sergeant Uday Singh Taunque, a boy of Indian-Origin, died fighting for the US Army in Iraq, his father Col Preet Mohinder Singh (retd) has been invited to witness the culmination of a joint Indo-US military exercise, ‘Yudh Abhayas’, in Chaubatia, Uttarakhand.

Col Singh lives in Chandigarh and the US Army requested its Indian counterparts to invite him for the closing ceremony of the exercise (September 16 to September 29), sources said.

“I am going to attend the ceremony. It is an honour for my son,” Col Preet Mohinder Singh told The Tribune over phone from Chandigarh.

Sergeant Uday Singh was enlisted in the US Army on August 28, 2000. He was deployed to Habbaniyah, Iraq, in 2003. His troop came under attack on December 1, 2003, and the Sergeant engaged the attackers. Though he died on way to hospital, the mission led to the capture of a number of insurgents. Uday’s mortal remains were confined to flames as per family customs. The Indian Army’s 5th Gorkha Rifles had sounded the Last Post.

Col Preet Mohinder Singh was commissioned in the 2 Lancer (Gardner’s Horse) in June 1970 and saw action on the Western front in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. He retired in 1995. Sergeant Uday’s grandfather had joined the IAF in 1934 and was a pilot during the Second World War.