Every year on 10 October, the officers of the 97th Long Course gather to mark another anniversary of their passing out from PMA Kakul. They are senior officers now, with decades of service behind them and families of their own. And every year, before the celebration begins, they do the same thing they have done for twenty-eight years: they recite the names of the course mates who are no longer with them. The first name they speak is that of Lieutenant Sami Ul Haq Shaheed.
Between 10 October 1998 and 10 October 2026, his course marked twenty-eight years of excellence and brotherhood. Through all those years, through promotions and postings, through marriages and children and the slow thinning of the ranks, his name has never been forgotten. A course does not remember for twenty-eight years out of duty alone. It remembers out of love.
A Young Officer of 24 Baloch
Lieutenant Sami Ul Haq, commissioned into the 24 Baloch Regiment, was part of an exacting tradition. The Sword of Honour of the 97th Long Course had been earned by Battalion Senior Under Officer Qasim Kayani, commissioned into the 16 Punjab Regiment, a reminder of the excellence the course demanded of its cadets. Lieutenant Sami Ul Haq belonged to that same tradition, and to the same brotherhood.
The bonds forged at the Academy are among the strongest a soldier ever knows. That his fellow officers still honour him, year after year, says everything about the man he was and the respect he commanded. To be carried in the hearts of the men who trained beside him, long after the parades have ended and the years have passed, is the truest measure of an officer’s worth.
The Martyrs of the 97th
Lieutenant Sami Ul Haq’s name is spoken alongside the other martyrs of his course: Lieutenant Colonel Junaid Tahir Qazi Shaheed of 8 Cavalry, Major Wasif Farooq Shaheed, Major Faheem Asif Shaheed of 4 Frontier Force, Captain Naveed Tariq Shaheed of 56 Mountain Artillery, Gentleman Cadet Baqir Raza Shaheed, Lieutenant Faisal Hussain Shaheed of 43 Azad Kashmir, Captain Imran Haider Shaheed of the Engineers, Lieutenant Colonel Haroon Hafeez Shaheed of 39 Azad Kashmir, and Brigadier Sohail Yousaf Shaheed, ex commanding officer of 41 Frontier Force and commander of the Clover Brigade.
Ten names. Ten lives. Ten families. Each anniversary gathering of the 97th Long Course is a little smaller than the last, yet the names of the fallen are spoken with undiminished pride. To be remembered by one’s course, year after year, is an honour that outlasts every medal. Decorations are pinned on chests; remembrance is carried in hearts.
Twenty-Eight Years of Brotherhood
There is something profoundly moving about a course that gathers for twenty-eight years and still speaks the names of the fallen first. It means the brotherhood forged at Kakul did not end at the passing-out parade. It became a lifelong covenant, in which the living carry the dead with them through every reunion.
Lieutenant Sami Ul Haq of the 24 Baloch Regiment is part of that covenant. His coursemates, now senior officers themselves, have watched the years pass and the ranks thin, and they have never once let his name drop from the roll. Nations build monuments to their soldiers, but the most enduring monuments are human ones: the comrades who remember.
As long as the 97th Long Course gathers each October, Lieutenant Sami Ul Haq Shaheed remains present among them, his name spoken with the same pride as on the day they passed out together. The fallen are still on parade. They are still counted. They are still part of the brotherhood.
Honouring His Memory
Lt Sami Ul Haq Shaheed gave his life in the service of Pakistan. May Allah grant him the highest place in Jannah and give his family the strength that comes from knowing their son is remembered, not just by the nation he served, but by the brothers he trained beside, who have carried his name for twenty-eight years and will carry it always.
His name, and the names of all our shuhada, will live on in the nation’s memory.
