Prince Charles once said, “In the world, there is only one secure place; that’s when you are between Gurkhas.”
These soldiers from Nepal are known as fearless and elite warriors. The British even concluded the Treaty of Sugauli with a clause allowing them to recruit Gurkhas for their own army when the Anglo-Nepalese War ended in 1816. Since that time, Gurkhas have proven their unmatched combat skills everywhere the armies of Great Britain have fought. In September 2010, a member of the Royal Gurkha Rifles added to their legend in one of the most epic battles of close combat in history.
It Runs In the Blood
Originally from Bima in western Nepal, Dipprasad Pun came from a long line of Gurkha warriors. Both his father and grandfather served in the Gurkha Rifles. His grandfather was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in the Burma theater fighting the Japanese during World War II(The Japanese were petrified of Gurkhas)
The Night of September 2010
Corporal(Acting Sargeant) Dipprasad Pun of the Royal Gurkha Rifles was a sentry in a small two-story, one-room outpost in Helmand Province. He heard some weird noise, so he went to check, thinking it might be a donkey or a cow. Instead, he found two men crouched at the front gate while trying to lay an improvised explosive device. The next thing he knew, he was being showered with AK-47 bullets and RPGs from three directions. Pun returned fire in all directions dropping target after target, Gurkha-Mode on, when a huge Taliban fighter rushed at his position Pun yanked his machine gun off its tripod and hosed him down. He had two more attackers rush at him, out of ammo for the machine gun, he set off his Claymore mine to blast them to paradise too.
Marchu Talai!
As the final Taliban fighter approached in a last desperate attempt to gain his sentry post, Pun engaged him with his SA80 rifle. It failed for some reason, so he tried to grab a sandbag, but it was tied up. He then grabbed his machine gun’s tripod and yelling,” ‘Marchu talai!” (I will kill you!) at the insurgent, beat him to death with it.
According to The Daily Mail report, reinforcements arrived to relieve him and found he had already expended “250 general-purpose machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, six phosphorous grenades, six normal grenades, five underslung grenade launcher rounds and one Claymore mine.” with Taliban fighters laying lifeless all around his position. The only weapon that he was not able to use was his Gurkha kukri knife which inexplicably was not with him at that time. (If you want to know how awesome this knife is, you can read it here.)
As he said, “I had so many of them around me that I thought I was definitely going to die, so I thought I’d kill as many of them as I could before they killed me.”
Promise more than kept, I’d say.
They found three dead Taliban at his position and blood pools and trails that suggested he has killed or wounded two to three times that number that had been dragged off by their comrades. The official body count was three in spite of stories you will see on the internet that he had killed thirty.
He was presented the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross given by Queen Elizabeth II for his bravery.
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