During my dad's tenure in PAF I interacted with different officers on different bases some of the memorable names are:
- Validslav Turowicz (never met him, met his daughters, wife and I was always impressed)
- The "M.M.Alam"
- Asghar Khan
- Nur Khan
- Mushaf Ali Mir (in his honor our elder son too is nicknamed by his grandad as Mashoo)
- Sohail Aman
- My class fellow hopefully going to make flag rank soon
PAF of today is due to 1-4 gentlemen their contributions are just too much, Sohail sb worked with my dad perhaps ADC or something he is one sharp person used to be an excellent sportsman, upright and extremely perceptive. Normally this is what you expect from PAF flag rank GDP.
One of the best thing Pakistan armed forces have developed as a culture is that they are really tight lipped about their capabilities. Some of the previous lessons have driven so deep that it has become a rule, a belief that 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.
Not even Americans know what we have been upto and which red line we crossed when, even if it means home grown ECM/EW. His interview hints in the same direction. As for Rafael and S400 as they say we'll cross that bridge...... every platform has its strength and its weaknesses, strengths could be turned into weaknesses and weaknesses can be exploited all that is required is commitment, resolve and perseverance.
Now for the IQ thing 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"
The main culprit behind deterioration of officer intelligence was Zia, whose minion started a cult where people with certain religious traits were promoted and then the dominos effect, thank goodness that era of horror is over.
For the difference in IQ here is a practical example many of us (the class fellows) came from the same school, and many from the same college. Our college section after FSc result was one of the best ever in terms if positions in the board. It was a fiercely competitive section with some of the best teachers of twin cities as lecturers. The difference between various positions in exams was no more than 2-3. Most of us applied for commission in various forces only 1 of us made it to PAF GDP hopefully will make flag rank this year, 4 of us went to PN (including me) to date 2 have made it to flag rank, and I think 10 odd went to PA three have made to flag rank rest have retired. If memory serves me right Army batch was 4 times that of NAVY, Airforce two times. Preliminary entrance test in PN was a b**ch, those who made it to PA mentioned upon sharing that theirs was the easiest of the three and PAF was the toughest.
But one should do an analysis how many appear in ISSB every year, how many qualify and out of each batch how many make it to the flag rank.
The physical requirements for a GDP brings it down to fractions of population size, then comes intelligence so you have may be less than actually 100 per batch. PN being smaller member yet have the same challenges less physical (may be lower than PA debatable) yet higher on the IQ chart because X officer even the engineering corps are commanding/leading/managing multi million dollars weapons platform.
However, the type of course forces are introducing and putting the young officer through them has started to raise the bar, and those who are unable to cope with the war of today well you see them retiring even at captain level. Not all of them are due to medical reason.
My dear sir I have yet to meet an officer with this type of traits, even if he is a retired captain, and not even an honorary captain.
BTW what these low IQed officers did to the plans aimed at disintegration of Pakistan and, the new great games are now being analyzed at micro level by many think tank across the globe. Strange many people in the west and arab states have started calling us "Markhor"