This is Jocco Podcast number seven with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink.

Ambush of dominating patrol at Nidunkini.

Nidunkini is a small village in the midst of the jungles and its extensive cleared patches were developing as farms.

The village had a couple of rice mills closed for a long time, a school, a dispensary and a small market next to the school.

The market was itself a road junction with houses and huts around.

North east of the market, a couple kilometers away, was the post of the IPKF held in strength.

North of the market was a pond, it's rising in bankmen facing the post.

It had become necessary to dominate Nidunkini by day as well as night at the height of operations in 88 and early 89.

Thereafter, dominating the market became a routine and a gospel for the next battalion, since the relieved battalion in its handing over notes had mentioned the same.

So the new battalion got into the rut and carried on without once asking why this action was necessary.

So much so that the new units dominating patrols even occupied the same trenches in the same fashion for the same period and checked the population in the same manner.

One change it made was to stop occupying the only double story building in the Bazaar and instead occupy only the ground level trenches in the midst of the market.

The second change was to stop searching the nearby school and other buildings, where trenches and bunkers were made, thoroughly before occupying them.

The third change over a period was to stop being inquisitive about the increase or decrease of public attendance in the market, school and other buildings.

The battalion for months had not been involved in any kind of encounter, not even caught or seen a mouse.

So this is setting the stage and I'm reading from a book called Assignment Jaffna, which is about the long civil war in a small country called Sri Lanka.

It's written by a Lieutenant General Sardish Pandey, who was a commander there on the ground.

I was very rare book, in fact I picked it up and started reading through it and I figured other people might want to get it.

The reason that I have it is because I bought it on the ground in Sri Lanka in the 90s when I was attached to a seal unit that went to Sri Lanka to help train the Sri Lankan soldiers to fight against the Tamil Tigers, which was an insurgent terrorist group called the LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam.

The ethnic group that lived in Sri Lanka and had been mistreated and had now wanted their own state.

So this opening of this book or the opening of the chapter that I just read about this ambush catches a couple things that I think are very important.

The one you heard me say that the new battalion got into this rut and carried on with this mission without once asking why it was necessary.

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