Soldier’s Life StartsTo End
I was taken from my home when I was in my teens, a young lad of 18 years, to be trained by one of the best in the profession for a whole two years. These two years changed my life forever. They changed my attitude and aptitude for life. A sense of sacrifice and devotion for duty was imbued in my character for the rest of my life. For me my duty and my motherland were of the foremost importance than any other thing.
I endured many hardships during my training period; long sleepless nights, long tiresome walks with full loads on my back, sleeping in open cold winter nights and walking all day long in the hot summer days. For me there was no margin of error what all I had to do was to be perfect and according to the laid down rules and procedures. I had to learn so many things which were unknown to me earlier. By the end of these two years I was a new person altogether who was stepping into the practical life of one of the noblest professions of all.
One would think that the things become easy after these two years, but that was not. So many more trainings were to follow in the coming years which were at times tougher than the initial ones. With the passage of time I had to grow more responsible and thus was entrusted with difficult assignments.
Years passed and I became senior in my rank and hence new assignments were given to me. One of the foremost things that I had to look upon was to take care of the people who were under my command. They are the people who would embrace death with open hands and smiling faces on my orders, so I had to think hundreds of times before giving an order so that the lives of my comrades were not put into the danger due to my ill planning or my any wrong order. These men were like brothers to me, they were part of my family and that acted as an extension of my body and are the real source of my power.
In the years to follow I moved throughout the country and performed my duties from the roof of the world to the barren and shade less sands of the plains every two years or so. I used to pack up my stuff and move to a new station, sometime taking my family along with and sometime leaving them behind in my home and head to my duty, as my duty came first for me every time. In this frequent shifting, I was able to see most part of my country, made new friends, learned new cultures and new traditions, gained a life time of experiences and cherished life long memories.
Beside my own usual duties, I am called upon whenever my country is in trouble, may it be the floods which engulf all the adjoining areas of the rivers or when the canals break its banks and leaves thousands of people dead and millions of people homeless, and then the water stands for days bringing many water-borne diseases along with.
It may be the devastating earthquakes, which within a short span of time kill thousands of people and destroy the livelihood. I am there to care for the injured, to save people buried under the rubbles, to reconstruct and rebuild whatever is destroyed so that the life goes on better than before. I am there whenever there is a need to look after the internal security matters, but this is not all, I may be called upon on any other duty when the country needs it to be done perfectly and in the right manner.
Now a days I am fighting the enemies of my homeland, who are living amongst us right inside my own country, who have poisoned our blood veins in one way or another. Who are these people? They are my countrymen but distracted from the right path, funded and trained by the external enemies of my country. Whom are they killing? My own innocent countrymen who have nothing to do with them, their agendas and their grievances either? It is shameful that what all they are doing in the name of Islam is neither part of Islam nor taught by Islam. No one is safe from them in schools, masjids, markets or in other worship places, they are killing children, women, the old and the young and that too without any remorse. They think that they are doing a service to Islam but in reality they are destroying the image of Islam, basics of Islam, the very essence of Islam. They call themselves Taliban and the servants of Islam but in fact they are killers of innocent and servants of Satan.
My job is to fight the enemies of my country, defend the borders of my homeland and safeguard the sovereignty of my country. In order to do so, I well train myself all years long, I keep abreast myself of every ill design of my enemies about my country and counter their every evil move against my precious homeland and its priceless sovereignty, I keep pace with the ever changing technology and in the process acquire modern machines which help me in accomplishing my task in the best of manner. While doing so I try to make myself self-reliant of the technology available to me at my home rather than banking on someone else.
Who am I? I am a disciplined soul, I am an untiring worker, I am a patriot, I sweat so you can relax, I am awake so you can sleep, and I shed my blood so that my country stays safe. In doing so is my happiness. Whatsoever difficult times I have gone through, I have always dreamt of giving my blood, my life for my homeland while defending my homeland, my Pakistan. Because for me, honour is being a soldier, above that being a shaheed.