THIS refers to the letters by Wg Cdr (Rtd) Ahmad Shah Jan (Feb 17) and earlier by Air Cdre (Rtd) Khayyam Durrani.

I wonder why these honourable gentlemen, whom I still feel deeply indebted to for giving us good officer-like qualities in our early days when we were teenagers, have come up with their argument of being a child of a ‘lesser god’ as compared to the officers of PAF’s other branches.

They have come with these arguments after leaving the PAF when they probably had already received all the benefits.

Why didn’t these distinguished former teachers forward their observations to their superiors while in service?

Shah Jan has mentioned of the institutions run by uniform-wearing, non-education branch officers at Sharea Faisal and Kohat.

I would like to point out that when I was a flight cadet at PAF College, Sargodha, which is the primary cradle of the future air warriors and purely an academic institution, our college was commanded by not even a uniform-wearing education branch officer, but a civilian education officer of PAF who acted as the principal under whom there were also many uniformed officers.

This talented civilian education officer later on became the principal of Aitchison College, Lahore.

I wonder if Shah Jan or Khayyam Durrani or others would have also felt as a child of a ‘lesser god’ if they had worked under a civilian education officer of the PAF?

MUHAMMAD ASIF
Karachi

Dissatisfaction

THIS is with reference to Wing Commander (Rtd) Yalmaz Salim Arshi’s letter ‘Educators in the armed forces’ (Feb 13) in response to my letter (Feb11). Nowhere in my previous letter did I try to lessen the importance of flying officers.

I was trying to reflect on the causes of dissatisfaction of educators wherein I said that as they are academically more qualified at the entry level, this fact keeps on nagging at the back of their minds.

The second point is that I never said that the ACRs of flying officers were written by less-qualified people, but that the ACRs of garrison engineers and medical officers are written by the Officer Commanding, Admn Wing, who are invariably ordinary graduates, whereas both the engineer and doctor are at least graduates in their respective fields. I hope this clarifies my contentions.

KARAM A SIDDIQUI
Karachi