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Abdullah, a young army officer met a charming lecturer, Anjum at Peshawar University. They decided to travel the brief journey of life together and married. Abdullah Saeed was son of Dr. Saeed Ahmad Khan (1900-1996) of Abbottabad. In early part of twentieth century, the Indians were trained at the newly established medical schools and Dr. Saeed was among the early pioneers. When he was at medical school, he developed tuberculosis and became so sick that he missed a year of study. This may have been the reason that he focused on chest diseases and tuberculosis. He served as the superintendent of tuberculosis sanatorium at Dadar near Abbottabad from 1939 to 1964 - this was the largest tuberculosis sanatorium in India. His son Abdul Haee Saeed followed in his father's footsteps and became a lung specialist in Pakistan.
Abdullah was commissioned in 6 Frontier Force (FF) Regiment after passing out from first Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) course in 1948. He steadily climbed the ladder of promotion and shined at different stages of his career. He served as Adjutant at PMA Kakul, instructor at infantry school Quetta and Directing Staff (DS) at staff college Quetta. He also went to the United States for a course at Infantry School Fort Benning, Georgia. As a young officer, he was a good athlete, a foot ball player and kept himself physically fit (no bulge) till his retirement. He commanded 1 FF (in my view he was not given the command of his parent battalion due to poor relationship between Abdullah and a 6 FF patriarch Lieutenant General Atiq ur Rahman) and later raised and commanded 26 FF. He served as commandant of Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul in early 1970s. On promotion to Major General rank, he was appointed General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 33rd Division based in Quetta, then operating under...