The Military Sheep That's Been Serving Since 1944

In World War II, the Indian battalion known as the Fifth Gorkha Rifles fought for the British in Burma. One of the brave riflemen who went missing in Burma was named Chinta Bahadur. The battalion searched for him for days, and never found a trace of him. But a sheep found the Gorkha Rifles and followed them. The soldiers got used to the sheep and adopted him, naming him Chinta Bahadur, as if he were an incarnation of their lost colleague. They even made him a member of the battalion!

And the sheep Chinta Bahadur (Chintey for short) serves with the Fifth Gorkha Rifles to this day. Chintey wears a "uniform" of horns painted in the unit's colors, and his attendance is marked at all activities, although he is not judged by his performance. He gets promotions, too, and often outranks the soldiers that accompany him. A sheep will live around eight to ten years, and when Chinta Bahadur dies, he will be replaced by a lamb with the same name, but he must work his way up the ranks again. All the members of the unit have the utmost respect for Chintey, a living memorial to a fallen soldier. Read about Chinta Bahadur at Indian Express. -via Strange Company


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“Knowing that a sheep usually lives for 8-10 years, Chinta Bahadur mostly reaches the rank of a havildar (three-rank chevron), and when he dies, we get a new sheep, who gets the name of Chinta Bahadur and becomes a part of the unit. This tradition has been going on since 1944.
This reminds me a bit of my grandfather who had a wife (my grandmother) named Mary and a parakeet he named 'Petey-boy' which he named after himself (Peter). When Mary died he went back to 'the old country' (Poland) and married a woman named Mary. And when Petey-Boy died he got another parakeet and named it Petey-Boy. I wonder if he had lived a very, very long life if he would have kept up the tradition of marrying only women named Mary and naming all of his Parakeets Petey-Boy?
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