{"id":13551,"date":"2016-03-24T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T06:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=13551"},"modified":"2016-03-24T01:00:11","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T06:00:11","slug":"cold-war-files-some-obscure-cold-war-history-in-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/24\/cold-war-files-some-obscure-cold-war-history-in-comics\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold War Files: Some Obscure Cold War History (In Comics)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The World\u2019s Highest War \u2026 in Comics<\/span><\/h1>\n

‘Siachen: The Cold War’ depicts a pointless conflict<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

In 1984, India and Pakistan went to war over the Siachen Glacier. A 2003 ceasefire halted most of the fighting, but troops from both sides are still facing off and losing more soldiers every year to the climate, altitude and avalanches than to enemy fire.<\/p>\n

The extreme environment and the absurd origins of the conflict got my attention. Both countries are still contesting\u00a0an uninhabited glacier \u2014 uninhabited, that is, except for soldiers. Then I discovered Siachen: The Cold War<\/em>, a 2012 Indian comic book by Rishi Kumar, Mahender Kumar, Dhiranjan Dasgupta and retired Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of a budding collection of English-language war comics<\/a>from\u00a0India\u00a0that shed light on events that are largely unknown in the West.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a cool subgenre,\u00a0and\u00a0tracking down the book\u00a0wasn\u2019t easy. Eventually, I found a Mumbai-based vendor with a single copy that was willing to ship it to the other side of the planet.<\/p>\n

But would I recommend it?\u00a0That depends.<\/p>\n

\"Icono<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in Indian military history, mountaineering, or if you\u2019re a journalist \u2014 ahem \u2014 who likes to write about obscure war comics, then I would. But the limited availability will likely deter most readers.<\/p>\n

\"siachen_3\"<\/a>Above, at top and below \u2014 scenes from Siachen: The Cold War<\/em>. AAN Comics illustrations<\/h6>\n

Siachen: The Cold War<\/em> is something of a hybrid. It\u2019s a 48-page work of military history \u2014 derived from open sources \u2014 which closely follows the war\u2019s actual events. It\u2019s also pulpy and nationalistic, with heroic Indian soldiers and cackling Pakistani villains who wouldn\u2019t be out of place in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The jingoism didn\u2019t sit well with me, but I won\u2019t count it against it anymore than I would\u00a0Sgt. Fury<\/em>. The book knows what it is.<\/p>\n

The comic follows the origins of the war in the 1950s to\u00a0a terrifying Pakistani ambush of an Indian patrol in May 1987. A sequel, Battlefield Siachen<\/em>, carries the story forward from there \u2026 though I haven\u2019t read that one.<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at War is Boring<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World\u2019s Highest War \u2026 in Comics ‘Siachen: The Cold War’ depicts a pointless conflict In 1984, India and Pakistan went to war over the Siachen Glacier. A 2003 ceasefire halted most of the fighting, but troops from both sides are still facing off and losing more soldiers every year to the climate, altitude and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[932,1427,2770,1286,5660,5043],"tags":[10571,10572,10573,10574,3913],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}