Role Model For Aspiring Bengali Army Officers
Ayub Khan's highly successful military rule from 1958 to 1968 further convinced Zia of the need for a fundamental change in the Bengali attitude towards the military. During that period Zia offered a role model for Bengali youth, excelling in his army career. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Ziaur Rahman made his mark as a valiant fighter whilst serving in the Khemkaran sector in Punjab as the commander of a company unit of 300–500 soldiers. The sector was the scene of the most intense battles between the rival armies. Zia's unit won one of the highest numbers of gallantry awards for heroic performances. Ziaur Rahman himself won the distinguished and prestigious Hilal-e-Jurat (Crescent of Courage) medal, Pakistan’s second highest military award, and his unit won 2 Sitara-e-Jurat (Star of Courage) medals, the third highest military award, and 9 Tamgha-e-Jurat (Medal of Courage) medals, fourth highest award, from the Army for their brave roles in the 1965 War with India. In 1966, Zia was appointed military instructor at the Pakistan Military Academy, later going on to attend the prestigious Command and Staff College in Quetta, Pakistan, where he completed a course in command and tactical warfare. Advocating that the Pakistan Army make greater efforts to recruit and encourage Bengali military officers, Zia helped raise two Bengali battalions called the 8th and 9th Bengals during his stint as instructor. Around the same time, his wife Khaleda Zia, now 23, gave birth to their first child Tarique Rahman (more popularly known as Tareq Zia, in reminiscent of his father's main name) on 20 November 1967. Very soon Ziaur Rahman, the father, would have to combine his newfound paternal instinct with his military expertise for a longsuffering deprived nation hungry for justice. Trained for high-ranking command posts, Zia joined the 2nd East Bengal regiment as its second-in-command at Joydebpur in Gazipur district, near Dhaka, in 1969. Although sectarian tensions between East and West Pakistan were intensifying, Zia travelled to West Germany to receive advanced military and command training with the German Army and later on spent few months with the British Army.
Read more about this topic: Major Zia
Famous quotes containing the words role, model, aspiring, army and/or officers:
“When things turn out pretty much as expected, parents give little thought to how much they have influenced the outcome. When things don’t turn out as expected, parents give a great deal of thought to the role they play.”
—Arlene Harder (20th century)
“When Titian was mixing brown madder,
His model was posed up a ladder.
Said Titian, “That position
Calls for coition,”
So he lept up the ladder and had her.”
—Anonymous.
“Usefulness! It is not a fascinating word, and the quality is not one of which the aspiring spirit can dream o’ nights, yet on the stage it is the first thing to aim at.”
—Ellen Terry (1847–1928)
“This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervishlike repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstacy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Now for civil service reform. Legislation must be prepared and executive rules and maxims. We must limit and narrow the area of patronage. We must diminish the evils of office-seeking. We must stop interference of federal officers with elections. We must be relieved of congressional dictation as to appointments.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)