Services Parade 14 August 2014
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Westridge, Rawalpindi
My nephew, Dr Amer, asked for my comments vide an email. This is what he wrote:
Dear Uncle Salam,
Just happened to watch the 14th August ceremony and was surprised to see Nawaz Sharif where he assumed the role of chief guest by sidelining the President of Pakistan on a national day ceremony. Paradoxically this happened right in front of the Presidency and in the presence of all the Chiefs of our Armed Forces who accepted the disgrace of their Supreme Commander !
Your comments please.
Heavy hearted on this national day.
Amer
My comments were as follow:
Dear Amer,
I also noted not only this breach of protocol but many other stupidities too, like :
It was a very FORMAL occasion, so to say, therefore:
1. Why were the invitees not in the formal National Dress? Apart from the PM only three or four others were in Sherwani. (Iqbal Ahsan, Urfan Siddiqui - advisor to PM and one other gentlemen sitting with Urfan). Rashid Pervez the Info Minister was in Suthan Kurta minus even the Waistcoat. Even Lt Gen Qadir Baloch (Retd), who should have known better, was in his most casual suthan kurta and crimpled waistcoat. He and other retired military officers should have been there either in uniforms (Retired officers can wear uniform with full medals on such ceremonial occasions) or in National Dress bedecked with their military medals but in miniatures.
1. Did the invitation card mention about the dress? If not, why not? And if it did, then how dare they come in all sorts of dresses?
2. Why were the military officers not in their Ceremonial uniform with full medals? (Thanks partly to Zia and then to Kiyani who completed the tally by doing away with the wearing of the belts), the officers should have been in their Sam Brown cross belts and the Naval officers with the swords hanging on the side.
3. Since it was a function at night – I don’t know how could they fly flags after Retreat? Anyway, ignoring it, the officers should have been in their Blue Patrols with miniature medals and Willigtons (calf high shoes without laces) with spurs and the Side Caps as the headgear.
4. Order of Seating was wrong. COAS was seated on the right side of the PM (the Chief Guest) and the CJCSC on his left. Whereas keeping in view their mutual seniority it should have been the other way round.
5. The officers and men on parade (from all three services) should have had their chins shaved in the evening before coming on parade. As presumably they had all shaved in the morning and the parade was nearly at midnight, the 18 hours or so had grown stubby beard on their faces which showed conspicuously in the strong light of the TV cameras. We as young officers used to shave before going to the mess for our formal Dinner Nights.
6. The MS to the PM – some Brigadier – was not carrying his Cosh (Malacca cane) while being on parade and accompanying the PM who inspected the guards.
7. What was the purpose of the Fly Past at night when one could not see anything about the planes and copters except their noise and some lights? It must have cost the PAF and Army Aviation millions in fuel and logging extra flying hours causing wear and tear of the craft, during rehearsals and the actual flying which could have been easily avoided.
However, one thing for which the credit must be given to the forces was the precise timings and the time keeping of various events. Everything, the parade, the march past, the drummers display, the fly past and the heralding of the 14 August at 0000 hrs were all perfect.
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