Late Gen. Gul Hasan A Trainer of Men With A Difference   Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI writes a moving piece on former COAS Pakistan Army Lt Gen Gul Hasan

I may not have seen Gen Gul (Late) as closely as some of his armoured corps colleagues and companions as Colonel Qayyum and others as I am not an armour man.

All the same I had ample opportunities to see him rather closely - both as an instructor - and as a trainer of a very important component of the Pakistan Army - I mean the armoured division.

This short appreciation is based on my somewhat eclectic - but thoroughly enjoyable association with the gifted General. I thought he was fairly methodical - though he gave an impression of being rather unconventional.

During his conversations - he sometimes left the later part of his speech somewhat not quite audible - and one has to guess what he was actually trying to say. And naturally one had to get used to his way of putting things across verbally. He of course was never a 'hell raiser ' - like Gen Patton. I am not quite sure some gunners like me could have developed acoustic problems - but I confirmed from a number of my friends and they all told me that they had difficulty in getting whatever he was trying to convey in its totality.

A smallish and very compact man physically I was simply wonder struck when I heard about his demise. I had in fact seen him walking about and playing cricket - and he was really enthusiastic about physical fitness - and sometimes - as will be apparent from this short appreciation - he went to the extreme to test the physical fitness of the officers of the division especially the comparatively senior lot.

In the last few months we have lost a cavalcade of illustrious retired army generals - the list includes Gen Gul Hasan, his antagonist Gen AO Mitha, Gen. Shariff - Gen Khadim Hussain Raja and Gen Nazar - just to name a few whom I had known for some time. My longest association of course had been with Gen Gul Hasan.

In this short appreciation I would confine myself to military matters as I am totally apolitical - and I thought Gen Gul was also cast the same way and could not pull on well with the political hierarchy. I first met him in the Command & Staff College Quetta in 1958 - where he was posted as DS (Directing Staff) and expert on armour matters.

I had entered the Staff College as a humble gunner officer for the 1958 Staff Course - and happened to be with him i.e. he was my instructor in an important term - I think it was the third term - in which the assessment of the student is almost finalised. Those who did well in this term - they could be sure of a good staff appointment after the course. We had a rather unusual course in which the number of foreign students was far too high - and quite a few of these students belonged to Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Thailand, Indonesia and some other countries like UK, USA and Canada.

Gen Gul looked flamboyant - and nearly unconventional. I remember he encouraged the students to take part in sports - especially cricket which he played well. Being a student in his syndicate and mindful of my final grading I often turned up to play cricket - though my expertise was hockey for which a six a side pitch existed just in front of the Mess at that time.

I could see that Gen Gul was terribly unconventional - and all his TDs (Tutorial Discussions) - weather permitting were taken outside in the college lawns in a very informal manner. This was a great departure from staid Staff College Convention. We usually sat on turf and discussed problems.

A TD was a hell of a boring exercise of perhaps memorizing a large number of facts - and military organisations - and then discussing their rationale or otherwise without consulting any notes or precise. A formal discussion - and inside the four walls of the austere syndicate room it was anything but wholesome. The DS could corner even the best mugger of the precis. Outside in the lawn - it was more comfortable and less agonising and quite congenial.

During my stay with him - and during this term there were a number of exercises which involved a lot of written work as syndicate with the overall responsibility of handing in the completed work in the DS Box in time by the syndicate leader. A syndicate could be five or six or less and every officer was given an appointment - and the solution had to be coordinated by the leader. The composition of the syndicate was a very important issue - and every exercise was based on the fact that all members must contribute. Some time - and if you were an unlucky leader you could get helpers from Jordan, Iraq - or Thailand and if the major composition of the syndicate was as heterogeneous as above, the syndicate leader just had it. I had to undergo one such turmoil.

We had an exercise on Mountain Warfare - and it involved a number of calculations mainly of mule loads - and most of my helpers packed off on some pretext or the other - and I learned later that the Iraqi officer had the problem of expansion of stomach - and the Thai chap told me that he had been bayoneted by the Japanese in the Second World War. Naturally I could not produce the solution - and went to Gen Gul (then Lt Col) with a half baked - and shabbily produced answer. I found him most considerate and he helped me out of my predicament - by telling me that I should submit the solution as best as I could and indicate the quantum of work of each member of the syndicate. This I did and to my surprise the work was put up to the CI (Chief Instructor) - and was graded well. I found Gen Gul most considerate and sympathetic. But for him I would have been disgraced and penalised for the shoddy and substandard piece of work which was least presentable and was partly in pencil and not even typed and legible.

I must be thankful to him for the final good grade - and a choice appointment after graduation from the course. He was soft-spoken and at times not quite discernible acoustically - but totally human and considerate. He apparently had his own views on tactics and methods of instruction which surely were not quite conventional.

Our next encounter was in Multan Cantt - where he had been posted as GOC of an armoured division. Gen Zia-ul Haq was one of the unit commander under him (like me.) Zia later became a staff officer Grade I with Gen Gul. I actually joined 15 (SP) Field Regiment which was organic to Gen Gul's division in June 1966.

It did not take me long to understand his state of the art methodology of training. We could see that he personally drafted the training instructions for his division - and then lead the division at the grass roots levels during the collective training period. I saw him leading troops and Squadrons in their leading tanks in the Muzaffargarh ranges during the collective training, and in fire and movement exercises he led from the front tank.

I would just like to relate one incident which shows the realism which he wanted in all exercises with troops. Muzaffargarh Ranges are a treacherous bit of sandy terrain with few features and map reading aids. It also has problems for the gunners as the sand is not a good platform for the guns - and the gun/firing data can shift due to sandy terrain unless the equipment is secured firmly to the ground - which was not easy as most of the gun areas were sandy and loose. (We had to improvise in a big way to produce stable firing positions.)

He had desired that the artillery firing should be as realistic as in war. He got a bunker built up at the target end (which provided enough security - all the same it was not absolutely foolproof and safe - and a direct hit would have demolished it. ) He himself went into this bunker and asked the gunners to fire with just the margin of the probable error (50 per cent zone of the guns) - to gauge how far the artillerists are trained. Any abnormal mistake in gun laying or data calculation would have been hazardous. He insisted that the artillery regiments fire on the bunker turn by turn - and that would be the tell tale of their training. Luckily the units fired perfectly - and though Gen Gul was shaken in the bunker and came out of it with a lot of dust and fear of God in him - but he was quite safe. I have never seen any General Officer do this and ask for fire on a target where he himself was located. This is the realism in training.

Perhaps the most redeeming aspect of his training methodology was that he trusted his Commanding Officers - and gave them full liberty in the training of their units. There was hardly any interference from outside - and if he had to visit a unit - he did it without warning. I know of an incident when he just turned up in my tank garages and had a check of the Motor Transport of the unit - and petrol accounts - without even telling me.

I remember on one fine morning he ordered that all officers under 45 years of age will wear FSMO (Field Service Marching Order) and do the 2 Miles Run test. It was an impromptu order - and the race, if I remember it well, was led by then Brigadier Jahan Zeb. Later he was to become a general.

The last meeting I had with him when he was installed at the apex army slot in GHQ after the fall of Dacca - and the rest is history, and after he fell out with Bhutto - Zia Ul Haq did try to be considerate to his mentor, but that was not enough.

With his death the country has lost a unique trainer of men who had original ideas of training and military efficiency notwithstanding his preference for an unconventional diet. May God bless his soul - and grant him a niche in Heaven - Amin.