The Kargil War Memorial stands on the Srinagar–Leh highway about five kilometres east of Drass, built to honour the Indian soldiers killed during the 1999 conflict with Pakistan. The centrepiece is a curved pink sandstone wall inscribed with the names of the dead. Artillery pieces captured or used during the war are displayed on the grounds, and the Captain Manoj Pandey Gallery documents the campaign through photographs and artefacts. A 30-metre flag pole flies a large national flag that is visible from the highway well before you reach the gate.
The memorial's setting gives it an unusual intensity. From the grounds you look directly up at Tololing and Tiger Hill — the two peaks whose recapture defined the war — and the proximity makes the plaques on the wall feel less like history and more like geography. The battle for Tololing lasted 32 days; Tiger Hill fell after Indian troops scaled a near-vertical 300-metre cliff in the dark. The memorial opened in 2000 as a makeshift structure and was rebuilt in 2014 in its current form. Entry is free, and Indian Army soldiers stationed at the site are generally willing to explain the exhibits.