A Piece of Pakistan in my Family History

My parents were divorced when I was very young. My father remarried, had a son, and pursued his military career with vigor, retiring eventually as a Colonel and Chief of Instruction for Army Intelligence. He was never able to talk about his work, and after his death when I attempted to obtain his military records I learned they had been stored in a building in Kentucky that, at some point in the past, caught fire, everything inside destroyed. Okaaay... One of the many places he lived was Pakistan. Following the death of Bin Laden, my brother sent me the following information, which I thought readers might also find interesting.

Abbottabad, where Bin Laden was killed, is about a 30 minute drive from Murree, on a narrow, winding, mountain road, and is named for a British general. It is in rolling foothill country that's a bit cooler and greener than the hot, dusty flat land down at the capital of Islamabad, which is why so many Pakistani army folks have homes there.

In 1958-59 Dad, Mom and I lived in Murree HIlls (not the village itself). Murree is higher in elevation than Abbottabad and in the steeper mountains very close to the disputed (still today) border with India. We then moved to Rawalpindi for a year, the capital at that time, as construction on the new capital city of Islamabad (adjacent to Rawalpindi) was begun.

The Murree Christian School's stone church is where I attended 2nd and 3rd grades. They had divided part of the church interior into separate classrooms, and it still looks in photos very much as it did 52 years ao. When we lived in Rawalpindi I would stay in the school's boys dormitory in Murree Hills during the week and take the hour-plus drive home on weekends. A search on the internet identified the 1959-60 dormitory as the Sandes Soldiers Home, a former convalescent facility for soldiers of the British Indian Army (Pakistan was part of India back then). It's now being used as a dorm for 6th grade and up. [In a photo, it is a 2-story building with a steep pitched roof and white porch railings.] The old stone church is named "Garrison Church" and was an Anglican church used by British soldiers stationed in Murree back when.

There was an armed attack on the school by 4 masked Islamist gunmen in August 2002, in which 6 Pakistani security guards were killed. None of the kids or teachers were hurt. I hope they didn't later become a target again. Just thought you might like to have some family history of where Dad was stationed at one point[relative to recent highly publicized event].

I tried relentlessly (and unsuccessfully) to talk my father into writing his memoirs, which included 5 amphibious landings during WWII as a young infantryman, and later, many colorful countries as his residence. When I was in my twenties he visited the states, escorting an Iranian General who was here for medical treatment. They came to my home for dinner, which is material for a story I'll tell another time --guaranteed to amuse.