In the good old days, those who served in the armed forces had one weekly holiday, which fell on Sundays.
KARACHI: The issue of one or two weekly holidays is in the news of late. In the good old days, those who served in the armed forces had one weekly holiday, which fell on Sundays. The rest of the days the military worked, though on Fridays the ‘pack-up’ time was 2 pm, to enable troops to offer their Friday prayers.
Then, sometime in the year 2001 or so it was decided to observe a holiday on the first Saturday of every month to facilitate troops and their families who wanted to do their shopping in markets since these would be closed on Sundays. However, now a holiday is observed every Saturday making it a two-day weekend. Interestingly this two-day weekend is also applicable for military hospitals and only their emergency departments are open.
The decision to observe a holiday on Saturdays has been taken without realising the inconvenience created for serving as well as retired military personnel and their families. Perhaps the military authorities should consider reverting back to a single day holiday in a week so that those who need to see a doctor at a military hospital are able to do so.
Sqn-ldr (retd) S Ausaf Husain
Published in The Express Tribune, October 23rd, 2011.
