Featured Analyzing misconceptions about Pakistan Armed Forces - Objectively

[ps3linux]

@SQ8 , @blain2 , @PanzerKiel , @ARMalik , @R Wing , @PakFactor , @The Eagle , @waz

Mods would please appreciate if this thread is spared from junk.

Often I come across terms like “Low IQed”, “Parrots – tottay” , “Yes sir Brigade”, “Jaahil – Ignorant”, “Matric Pass” for our Armed forces, picking up motivation from a thread here I thought to analyse these terms in a more objective way instead of the usual “fatwa brigade” mentality we are so fond of.

I want this article to be a rational attempt at analyzing things rather than the garbage of ignorant opinionated views. I am using English as simple as I can so that most of the people can benefit, and not trying to impress anyone with my prowess of English vocabulary, thus I seek apology from more learned people over a certain degree of Colloquialism. This thread will also appear on my blog.

https://historiananalyst.wordpress.com

First the necessary I am not an Armed forces officer serving or retired, I am not attached to any institution linked directly or indirectly to Armed forces of Pakistan, and I am not paid by anyone to write this analysis frankly very few can really afford my cost. I was selected in one of the forces as a potential officer candidate, joined the academy but mid-way left due to my own reasons without any bad feelings for that service or the service had/has any bad feeling or disciplinary charges against me. Every effort was made to dissuade me from leaving the service. I spend a major part of my life education and profession abroad (about two decades and change) and that has given me the perspective to appreciate our forces. My family has strong ties to armed forces but that’s it.

So now distribution of talent in any society marks the growth or development of that particular segment where most of the talent is directed and it is different for different countries.

For decades Pakistani talent has been directed primarily at Armed forces, except that someone inherently doesn’t want to join armed forces due to one reason or the other or for medical reasons very other young man give armed forces a try some ISSB and some the rank, some try a short commission after education. Practically millions of young men go to the recruitment and selection centers of Armed forces, I will be using Army as the prime example, be it the ranks or be it the officers the selection criteria is pretty tough. For officer preliminary test, the physical test, then medical these are three different filters and finally approximately 100,000 candidates enter ISSB (my figures may be bit off but gist remains) out of those only few hundred make it to all three services not even a thousand at any given point in time. Oh did I forget the background check… many a shining people are filtered out due to that very check. ISSB (though I have my reservations about modernizing the criteria) has served the forces well.

Nut shell with the exception of few most of youth talent takes an attempt to join forces, just like any good institution Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc the effort is to make sure that all selected are almost at par with each other in IQ, not out of ordinaries on both sides. So actually pretty much the cream of the nation joins Armed forces. Strangely the lowest bottom of the talent joins either religious fraternity or teaching profession, yes I know PhD and universities etc but the school level where the talent is nurtured we have a major problem, like the religious fraternity.

Now I am picking up bits and pieces from another thread which I wrote.

Now for the low IQ among officers we the class fellows/batch mates have discussed this matter for over a decade, one of us was at a key position in ISSB and we discussed why average intelligence of Officers is dropping and he was pretty opinionated about his statement "officers are a product of our educational system if you see a deterioration in the intelligence this means your education system is deteriorating"

How in God's name education system will improve when we are sending the lowest among our talent pool as the ones who are supposed to nurture our future talent, seems a bit odd.
ISSB is not a joke, it is meant to evaluate who you are, are you capable of motivating and leading the men put under your charge will you be able to take care of them. You cannot beat it some of the finest people are there to evaluate candidates, yes there is a degree of nepotism, influential do influence selection of their kin but if they are not capable enough you will see them retiring soon.

I know my school and college one of the most talented pool of students in one batch that I ever came across. I know 90% of my school fellows and almost all of my college fellows applied for forces as commissioned officers, school batch was about 60 and college was about 80. Only 1 made to PAF GDP (I think about 10 went for ISSB), 4 including me joined PN (I left half way through my training) and about 3 more joined after B.Sc, with the exception of 2 all have retired both serving are flag rank, 10 made it to PA, I think couple more joined later with the exception of 3 all have retired, all 3 as flag rank officers. Hope the readers get the picture. My batch in school and college was one of the extra ordinary one the number of positions in Matric and FSc board from my batch is a testament of that, we were not given 95% like today the marking was very strict that time and yet.

Now herein is another very interesting fact, over the years I have come to realize why some people hate the forces so much and have categorized them as follows:
• Rejected by ISSB twice
• Belonging to families who despite holding Pakistani credentials are not Pakistanis at heart
• Influenced by Media channels like Jew News/Geo news, and Daily G*y/ Daily Dawn
• Good at heart people who think they know the grey areas in forces and yet don’t know the real armed forces.
• Drummed out of Armed Forces due to “conduct unbecoming of officer” or other disciplinary charges

Three of our class fellows who are vehemently opposing Armed forces these day incidentally were rejected by ISSB twice one is also influenced by mullahs, one worked for G*y Media Group/dawn Media Group and the third one well let’s just say many of us class fellows have been supporting him and his family throughout his life. These three gentlemen find everything in Pakistan going wrong due to Armed Forces for obvious reasons. Yeah two of our batch mates were drummed out from PN for reason (5) one of them is a senior banker and the other a businessman. Businessman is Ok with his life but the banker is vehemently against Forces strange ain’t it.

So the growth of Forces Institutions apart from their ability to Arm twist may also be due to the fact that most of the talented gentlemen of the country end up here and they are damn loyal to their institution as compared to many of the rest gentlemen.

So far I have only able to address the IQ part, hopefully.

Now the next 2 parts. i.e; “Parrots – tottay”, “Yes sir Brigade”

We have to understand what the purpose of forces is and what they are required to do.
Purpose is simple defense/offense and weeding out all shrubs posing a danger to the country they are sworn to protect. Another point that is used that somehow in the forces no one questions an order, I only smile at that. I am sure the professionals of Armed Forces across the globe would do too.

In the states and even Pak forces it is a well-established fact that forces are not run by the officers but the JCOs. Weaker the officer stronger the JCO or any other combination, senior JCO is always involved in company level decisions, good officers listen to their JCO. The reason Yes sir culture is necessary is not due to British DNA, but the necessity that if the ranks develop the habit of questioning their officer this could lead to serious problem in engagements. Any input if required from JCO is most of the time at the planning stage after that its execution. Those who know Pak forces culture they know all too well that all field officer are very independent when it comes to tactical decision necessitated by circumstances when compared to our eastern people. People have no idea what happens in the meetings of formation commanders or Corps commanders.

If we develop the culture of second guessing orders of officer we are looking at disaster beyond repair, what would happen if a subordinate questions the order of a senior to take out an enemy sniper who is in a position to take out their entire company, or what would happened when the subordinate refuses to fire at enemy at a critical time?

Pakistan Army is different from US Army, which is a no questions asked army they have to do marketing campaigns in order to attract people, criminals, drug traffickers, rapist, sociopaths psychopaths are a norm in their forces. We, we have no shortage of volunteers. Pakistan forces spend a considerable amount of money just to ensure the background checking of all potential soldier. Of course there are bound to be errors but the system is pretty robust and all errors are corrected through drumming out and early retirements, may be a court martial as well.

No Armed force in the world could afford subordinates second guessing orders, orders are to be carried out without question. Besides is our civil life any different? I have seen supervisors screw the career of subordinates who questions them, it just a hypocrisy that well our subordinates must be yes men in civil life but uniformed people must be second guessing their officers.

Now for the other part “Jaahil – Ignorant”, “Matric Pass”, from what I think the “Matric Pass” officers of JCC/JCB are almost gone if not then in the next 10 years there will no more be any officer who joined through JCC or JCB it is now F.Sc/F.A. Moreover, a fuaji doesn’t require a degree to fire a gun what he requires is training, muscle memory, physical conditioning, evaluation of circumstance, account of resources, leading the people to achieve target within the available resources.

Let me quote my two friends both flag rank officers in PA. “A**** convinced me to join PA because we didn’t want to study more, so we applied and joined P.A little did we know that throughout our career most of time we will only be studying, now when I look back I don’t regret but had I known that its study that I will be doing through my professional life I may not have joined P.A”

Indoctrination in Pakistani Armed forces is beyond belief, in the most dangerous of tasks most of the time it is voluntary and never has there been a mission where there was a shortage of volunteers. Even if it means going out in a radiation zone or protecting an area where Pakistan is going to Test it nukes with less than 50% survival chances, it is easy to say buy voluntarily putting your life on line to protect the country the ideals is altogether a different thing.

No one asks a doctor how many degrees he has, all he must have is a good diagnosis ability, good manners and good prescription so by that virtue I think we have very good and capable armed forces, despite the lack of resources and internal traitors.

I have my questions about few practices in the forces like elevation to flag rank, forces know each and every thing about their officers so how come people like Zia, beg, musharraf and kiani and many other made it to flag rank that is something which requires serious rework. US forces utilize the services of subject matter experts extensively from the civilian side and they are given utmost respect, however here the officers consider themselves all-knowing and thus fail to learn from civilian subject matter experts and are never trained to extend respect to anyone other than a senior or uniformed person, there is another but this is not the forum so in my opinion these things need rework along some fresh perspectives.

Otherwise we have a pretty robust and talented pool in our forces both at officers and JCOs level.

Once we make a house and a window is found to be out of place we don’t tear down the whole house, we change the area which requires improvement, I know Armed forces have grey areas but we cannot go out and change the entire setup. History is full of incidents where a set order was disturbed and the results were anything but good.

Humanity is all about evolution our forces too are evolving some of the lessons our forces have learned in the last few decades which resulted in hard lessons and future course of action are there will never be a 71, we will never be caught with our pants down, civilian rulers no matter how good will never be allowed to cause another Indus water or Kargil, Shareef Family will never again be allowed to oust any COAS even if it means to have Musharraf as COAS and Pakistan forces will never ever again take part in any one else’s war.
I have done this piece in about two hours so errors and omission are regretted, I now have to drive to the farm house for weekend.

 

[bhola record]

@SQ8 , @blain2 , @PanzerKiel , @ARMalik , @R Wing , @PakFactor , @The Eagle , @waz

Mods would please appreciate if this thread is spared from junk.

Often I come across terms like “Low IQed”, “Parrots – tottay” , “Yes sir Brigade”, “Jaahil – Ignorant”, “Matric Pass” for our Armed forces, picking up motivation from a thread here I thought to analyse these terms in a more objective way instead of the usual “fatwa brigade” mentality we are so fond of.

I want this article to be a rational attempt at analyzing things rather than the garbage of ignorant opinionated views. I am using English as simple as I can so that most of the people can benefit, and not trying to impress anyone with my prowess of English vocabulary, thus I seek apology from more learned people over a certain degree of Colloquialism. This thread will also appear on my blog.

First the necessary I am not an Armed forces officer serving or retired, I am not attached to any institution linked directly or indirectly to Armed forces of Pakistan, and I am not paid by anyone to write this analysis frankly very few can really afford my cost. I was selected in one of the forces as a potential officer candidate, joined the academy but mid-way left due to my own reasons without any bad feelings for that service or the service had/has any bad feeling or disciplinary charges against me. Every effort was made to dissuade me from leaving the service. I spend a major part of my life education and profession abroad (about two decades and change) and that has given me the perspective to appreciate our forces. My family has strong ties to armed forces but that’s it.

So now distribution of talent in any society marks the growth or development of that particular segment where most of the talent is directed and it is different for different countries.

For decades Pakistani talent has been directed primarily at Armed forces, except that someone inherently doesn’t want to join armed forces due to one reason or the other or for medical reasons very other young man give armed forces a try some ISSB and some the rank, some try a short commission after education. Practically millions of young men go to the recruitment and selection centers of Armed forces, I will be using Army as the prime example, be it the ranks or be it the officers the selection criteria is pretty tough. For officer preliminary test, the physical test, then medical these are three different filters and finally approximately 100,000 candidates enter ISSB (my figures may be bit off but gist remains) out of those only few hundred make it to all three services not even a thousand at any given point in time. Oh did I forget the background check… many a shining people are filtered out due to that very check. ISSB (though I have my reservations about modernizing the criteria) has served the forces well.

Nut shell with the exception of few most of youth talent takes an attempt to join forces, just like any good institution Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc the effort is to make sure that all selected are almost at par with each other in IQ, not out of ordinaries on both sides. So actually pretty much the cream of the nation joins Armed forces. Strangely the lowest bottom of the talent joins either religious fraternity or teaching profession, yes I know PhD and universities etc but the school level where the talent is nurtured we have a major problem, like the religious fraternity.

Now I am picking up bits and pieces from another thread which I wrote.

Now for the low IQ among officers we the class fellows/batch mates have discussed this matter for over a decade, one of us was at a key position in ISSB and we discussed why average intelligence of Officers is dropping and he was pretty opinionated about his statement "officers are a product of our educational system if you see a deterioration in the intelligence this means your education system is deteriorating"

How in Gods name education system will improve when we are sending the lowest among our talent pool as the ones who are supposed to nurture our future talent, seems a bit odd.
ISSB is not a joke, it is meant to evaluate who you are, are you capable of motivating and leading the men put under your charge will you be able to take care of them. You cannot beat it some of the finest people are there to evaluate candidates, yes there is a degree of nepotism, influential do influence selection of their kin but if they are not capable enough you will see them retiring soon.

I know my school and college one of the most talented pool of students in one batch that I ever came across. I know 90% of my school fellows and almost all of my college fellows applied for forces as commissioned officers, school batch was about 60 and college was about 80. Only 1 made to PAF GDP (I think about 10 went for ISSB), 4 including me joined PN (I left half way through my training) and about 3 more joined after B.Sc, with the exception of 2 all have retired both serving are flag rank, 10 made it to PA, I think couple more joined later with the exception of 3 all have retired, all 3 as flag rank officers. Hope the readers get the picture. My batch in school and college was one of the extra ordinary one the number of positions in Matric and FSc board from my batch is a testament of that, we were not given 95% like today the marking was very strict that time and yet.

Now herein is another very interesting fact, over the years I have come to realize why some people hate the forces so much and have categorized them as follows:
• Rejected by ISSB twice
• Belonging to families who despite holding Pakistani credentials are not Pakistanis at heart
• Influenced by Media channels like Jew News/Geo news, and Daily G*y/ Daily Dawn
• Good at heart people who think they know the grey areas in forces and yet don’t know the real armed forces.
• Drummed out of Armed Forces due to “conduct unbecoming of officer” or other disciplinary charges

Three of our class fellows who are vehemently opposing Armed forces these day incidentally were rejected by ISSB twice one is also influenced by mullahs, one worked for G*y Media Group/dawn Media Group and the third one well let’s just say many of us class fellows have been supporting him and his family throughout his life. These three gentlemen find everything in Pakistan going wrong due to Armed Forces for obvious reasons. Yeah two of our batch mates were drummed out from PN for reason (5) one of them is a senior banker and the other a businessman. Businessman is Ok with his life but the banker is vehemently against Forces strange ain’t it.

So the growth of Forces Institutions apart from their ability to Arm twist may also be due to the fact that most of the talented gentlemen of the country end up here and they are damn loyal to their institution as compared to many of the rest gentlemen.

So far I have only able to address the IQ part, hopefully.

Now the next 2 parts. i.e; “Parrots – tottay”, “Yes sir Brigade”

We have to understand what the purpose of forces is and what they are required to do.
Purpose is simple defense/offense and weeding out all shrubs posing a danger to the country they are sworn to protect. Another point that is used that somehow in the forces no one questions an order, I only smile at that. I am sure the professionals of Armed Forces across the globe would do too.

In the states and even Pak forces it is a well-established fact that forces are not run by the officers but the JCOs. Weaker the officer stronger the JCO or any other combination, senior JCO is always involved in company level decisions, good officers listen to their JCO. The reason Yes sir culture is necessary is not due to British DNA, but the necessity that if the ranks develop the habit of questioning their officer this could lead to serious problem in engagements. Any input if required from JCO is most of the time at the planning stage after that its execution. Those who know Pak forces culture they know all too well that all field officer are very independent when it comes to tactical decision necessitated by circumstances when compared to our eastern people. People have no idea what happens in the meetings of formation commanders or Corps commanders.

If we develop the culture of second guessing orders of officer we are looking at disaster beyond repair, what would happen if a subordinate questions the order of a senior to take out an enemy sniper who is in a position to take out their entire company, or what would happened when the subordinate refuses to fire at enemy at a critical time?

Pakistan Army is different from US Army, which is a no questions asked army they have to do marketing campaigns in order to attract people, criminals, drug traffickers, rapist, sociopaths psychopaths are a norm in their forces. We, we have no shortage of volunteers. Pakistan forces spend a considerable amount of money just to ensure the background checking of all potential soldier. Of course there are bound to be errors but the system is pretty robust and all errors are corrected through drumming out and early retirements, may be a court martial as well.

No Armed force in the world could afford subordinates second guessing orders, orders are to be carried out without question. Besides is our civil life any different? I have seen supervisors screw the career of subordinates who questions them, it just a hypocrisy that well our subordinates must be yes men in civil life but uniformed people must be second guessing their officers.

Now for the other part “Jaahil – Ignorant”, “Matric Pass”, from what I think the “Matric Pass” officers of JCC/JCB are almost gone if not then in the next 10 years there will no more be any officer who joined through JCC or JCB it is now F.Sc/F.A. Moreover, a fuaji doesn’t require a degree to fire a gun what he requires is training, muscle memory, physical conditioning, evaluation of circumstance, account of resources, leading the people to achieve target within the available resources.

Let me quote my two friends both flag rank officers in PA. “A**** convinced me to join PA because we didn’t want to study more, so we applied and joined P.A little did we know that throughout our career most of time we will only be studying, now when I look back I don’t regret but had I known that its study that I will be doing through my professional life I may not have joined P.A”

Indoctrination in Pakistani Armed forces is beyond belief, in the most dangerous of tasks most of the time it is voluntary and never has there been a mission where there was a shortage of volunteers. Even if it means going out in a radiation zone or protecting an area where Pakistan is going to Test it nukes with less than 50% survival chances, it is easy to say buy voluntarily putting your life on line to protect the country the ideals is altogether a different thing.

No one asks a doctor how many degrees he has, all he must have is a good diagnosis ability, good manners and good prescription so by that virtue I think we have very good and capable armed forces, despite the lack of resources and internal traitors.

I have my questions about few practices in the forces like elevation to flag rank, forces know each and every thing about their officers so how come people like Zia, beg, musharraf and kiani and many other made it to flag rank that is something which requires serious rework. US forces utilize the services of subject matter experts extensively from the civilian side and they are given utmost respect, however here the officers consider themselves all-knowing and thus fail to learn from civilian subject matter experts and are never trained to extend respect to anyone other than a senior or uniformed person, there is another but this is not the forum so in my opinion these things need rework along some fresh perspectives.

Otherwise we have a pretty robust and talented pool in our forces both at officers and JCOs level.

Once we make a house and a window is found to be out of place we don’t tear down the whole house, we change the area which requires improvement, I know Armed forces have grey areas but we cannot go out and change the entire setup. History is full of incidents where a set order was disturbed and the results were anything but good.

Humanity is all about evolution our forces too are evolving some of the lessons our forces have learned in the last few decades which resulted in hard lessons and future course of action are there will never be a 71, we will never be caught with our pants down, civilian rulers no matter how good will never be allowed to cause another Indus water or Kargil, Shareef Family will never again be allowed to oust any COAS even if it means to have Musharraf as COAS and Pakistan forces will never ever again take part in any one else’s war.
I have done this piece in about two hours so errors and omission are regretted, I now have to drive to the farm house for weekend.

sir if you don't mind me asking why did you leave PN between training?

 

[Kompromat]

ISSB system needs an update. Too many military brats are making it through as compared to civilian candidates.

 

[Ivan]

US forces utilize the services of subject matter experts extensively from the civilian side and they are given utmost respect, however here the officers consider themselves all-knowing and thus fail to learn from civilian subject matter experts and are never trained to extend respect to anyone other than a senior or uniformed person, there is another but this is not the forum so in my opinion these things need rework along some fresh perspectives.

 

[Sabretooth]

Too many military brats are making it through as compared to civilian candidates.

That is a very dangerous trend.

 

[PanzerKiel]

ISSB system needs an update. Too many military brats are making it through as compared to civilian candidates.

I believe it's the other way around. The present trend in PMA for long course is that 30 to 35 percent of cadets are from military background....

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

ISSB system needs an update. Too many military brats are making it through as compared to civilian candidates.

Well i got rejected twice while my father was serving armed forces and there were many such cases in my social circle on other hand many of my school fellows with civilian background passed. What you're saying ain't true. A civilian studying in army institution or is somehow related to army or has social circle with close link to army has higher chance of applying for army compare to rest.

 

[Mig hunter]

ISSB system needs an update. Too many military brats are making it through as compared to civilian candidates.

Nope it's not like that it's the majority from Cadet colleges which include both civilians and military background. As a result candidates outside Cadet colleges have little left to compete for because candidates from Cadet colleges are taught and trained for armed forces after 8th grade. Most notable are
Military college jehelum
Cadet college Hassan abadal
Military college murree
Military college sui
Cadet college kohat
Garrison Cadet college kohat
PAF college sargodha and lower topa
Cadet college batrassi
And so many others
Say miltary college jehlum has success rate of 60 to 70%. Their induction is 130 annually. So 1/4th of PMA induction goes from here with rest one can guess easily.
I hope this put this theory to rest

 

[Kompromat]

That's a huge % when you divide the number of officers by the number of population.

Military brats come with an unfair advantage to the exams. They have connections and above all, are intimately familiar with the Military system, policies etc having grown up in cantonments and military schools.

This leaves a vast majority of civilian candidates at a disadvantage as they have neither connections nor awareness.

If this doesn't stop, our military will become hereditary, just has our politics and we know already how that turned out.

I believe it's the other way around. The present trend in PMA for long course is that 30 to 35 percent of cadets are from military background....

 

[Ghost 125]

ISSB system needs an update. Too many military brats are making it through as compared to civilian candidates.

I believe thats simply not true, the figure that PanzerKiel mentioned is perhaps the highest ratio for a specicific course.... usually it is far below that.

 

[PanzerKiel]

I believe thats simply not true, the figure that PanzerKiel mentioned is perhaps the highest ratio for a specicific course.... usually it is far below that.

Data is from six consecutive courses from 2016 till 2019.

 

[ps3linux]

sir if you don't mind me asking why did you leave PN between training?

There are few ways to define young people
Idealist
Rebel to the status Quo
Brat
Prissy
Obstinate
Extremely talented by not wise enough

I was all of them combined. Though I don't have any regrets when it comes to education afterwards I think three engineering degrees from some of the top universities in the world, 8 or 9 financial qualifications again from some elite institutions globally, enough success in life.

Just one regret I could have contributed to my country more in uniform but no one can fix past actions.

ISSB system needs an update. Too many military brats are making it through as compared to civilian candidates.

I believe it's the other way around. The present trend in PMA for long course is that 30 to 35 percent of cadets are from military background....

Gentlemen can I offer another perspective again a matter which has been discussed between us the class/course mates for almost a decade including probably two three stars may be close blood relations and here is the summary.

Yes no sane person would deny a degree of nepotism in Armed Forces be it ISSB, be it final selection or be it career later, but one thing is absolutely certain nepotism can bend the merit from say 19 to 20, or 18 to 20 may be extreme cases 17 to 20 but it could not be 15 to 20 or 10 to 20, every stage has its challenges including medical stage so yes Fauji brats may get somewhat easier path but no daddy/uncle can clear all the paths, its a dangerous career path, many get rejected in the initial stages, academies are no walk in the park either. And the career well its easy to say but facing death on the ground, under the sea or in the air is no joke not everyone is made for it.

Now some other considerations, Armed forces of any country are the representative of general traits and character of that nation, if we find nepotism in Armed Forces may be we need to take a step back and look at out nation as a whole.

What is the qualification of that passive faggot billo a degree from Oxford on a beggars quota, what is his political struggle, how many years he spend serving the people understanding democracy, how come he was appointed as Chairman? a PM candidate? what is the qualification/struggle of Maryam bibi except may be the miracle of being born to Mr. Noora of gawalmandi how come she is the PM in waiting? I mean children of thugs, ignorant, land grabbers, corrupt become law makers just because their daddy/uncle/mama were the same.

How come children of a banker become banker I have seen a senior banker's 4 children working in the same bank as daddy dear, how come policemen's children get an easier pass to get selected in police? how come a bureaucrat's children get an easier pass in CSS, or for that matter children of a Wapda employee, children of a railway employee, children of PTV employee, children of a SNGPL employee, children of OGDCL employee or children of a doctor, children of an engineer follow their parents's footsteps even if the child is but a shadow of his daddy/mommy in terms of competence.

It is but natural in our society, even if merit gets twisted for armed forces you can only bend the merit as mentioned above, when it comes to other walks of life you could look at Billo and admire the system which allowed a thing with undetermined sex become a PM candidate just because mommy dear was a politician.

We are not living in an ideal world, I for one am a firm believer of merit but no matter how much I skew my opinion I cannot consciously agree to implement merit only for armed forces, why just them? Sorry.

Now gentlemen if you would excuse me for today, I have to start preparing today's dinner for the family i.e; lamb sajji

 

[Reichmarshal]

I am astounded at how utter crap some of the post on this thread are, based on nothing more than made up lies and hearsay.

I know of a serving dg isi and a air chief who's son's were not recommended by the issb. I being a military brat my self know of hundred of son's of military officers who did not make the cut.
Depending on ones prospective consider it a curse or a gift that from the time that u open ur eyes the children of military ppl, all they know is the military as it's all around them and surrounds them, so it's natural that all they think about is joining the military. So how any one can hold it against them is brainless to say the least.
But military selection does not take that into account and treats u just like all the other candidates. The only advantage u get is in the final selection.

Coming to the cadet colleges.......
Their are no special places or marks for candidates from military back grounds and they have to make the grade like the others to get in. Once in u do stand a good chance to join the military on acc of ur training but than again the majority decide to peruse other carriers.

The most astounding bit is questioning the iq levels of our military personal.!
Our military is perhaps one of the few militaries in the world who never run a campaign for recruitment as millions apply without it from all walks of life, creed and colour....the best of the lot make it to the academy and even fewer passout.
In other words the ones who make it are the cream of our nation the best that Pakistan has to offer


People above making excuses or accusing the military of unfair treatment seem to me who could not make the cut....a case of sour grapes.

 

[Areesh]

I personally know one of my friend whose father was a retired major and had two brothers serving in the army. One was at the rank of Lieutenant colonel too. But despite that the poor guy failed to pass ISSB twice and had to do BS in computer science

 

[ARMalik]

In my view, a son following his father's footsteps and wanting to join the Military is in fact Amazing and highly commendable. There is nothing wrong with it; in FACT this is a Historical fact that throughout History, you will find great families with great Military traditions. And it is no different in Pakistan. In my view, this tradition of sons and daughter following their fathers and uncles foot steps and wanting to join the Military is SINGLE BIGGEST RETAINER OF KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE. The Knowledge and Experience, good or bad, a fathers gains for many decades while working for the Military, he very willingly wants to pass it onto to his Son. When sons and daughters are coached by their retired fathers like this, it actually greatly helps these individuals to further develop themselves along with the Military training.

And when you ALSO inject new people with no family background in Military, you also ensure that the Military taps into the new and fresh ideas these new people might bring to the organisation. Overall, I believe the Military has got is right. I will write more on the training and education later.