The 968th Division (hereinafter referred to as the Division), a mobile regular force of Military Region 4, was established on 28 June 1968 in the battlefield of Southern Laos to meet the demands for the anti-US resistance war for national salvation. The Division has obtained a lot of achievements and glamorous traditions in the struggling cause for national liberation and the fulfillment of international duties. Especially, in two times of doing their international duties in Lao battlefields, the Division coordinated with the friendly units to combat in hundreds of battles, destroy the enemies, protect and widen the liberated areas, safeguard the strategic supply line of Truong Son – Ho Chi Minh Trail and build the political bases, becoming the reliable support for Lao people. Together, cadres and soldiers of the Division honourably attending the historical Ho Chi Minh Campaign bravely fought from the Southern Highlands to the Central Coastal, contributing to the complete liberation of the South and the unity of the country. Through 55 years of building, combat and development, tens of thousands of cadres and soldiers of the Division have sacrificed their lives for the cause of the glorious revolution of the Party and the nation, constructing the traditions of “Patience, endurance – Bravery, resilience – Being trusted by friends, loved by the people – Surely winning once deployed”. Being acknowledged with these achievements, the Division was awarded the Title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces in 1976, the Isala Medal by Lao People’s Democratic Republic in 1983 and many other noble awards.
Bringing into play these traditions, in recent years, the Division has always well accomplished their duties and led the emulation movements of the Military Region. These results were attributed to many factors, of which, the enhancement of the political and ideological education, building the spirit and determination for cadres and soldiers to overcome difficulties and challenges is the key one.
With the gradually higher task requirements in the new situation, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have regularly paid attention to the leadership and direction on political and ideological education. Annually, basing on the thorough grasp of resolutions and directions on the political education, especially Direction No. 124-CT/QUTW, dated 31 March 2011 by the Central Military Commission on “Strengthening the leadership and direction over the political education at the grassroots units in the new era”; Project of “Reforming the political education in the new era” by the Defence Ministry, the Division’s Party Committee has concretised into its regular resolutions to lead the political and ideological education, and implemented in the whole unit. To gain the results, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have led the party committees, party cells, offices and units to clearly make their targets, duties, requirements, contents and methods practical to the situation, tasks and requirements into their regular resolutions. Besides, they have attentively renovated the leadership and direction of the party committees, the management of the political commissars, junior political commissars and commanders; heightened the responsibility of the leading cadres in organising, managing and joining the political education; brought into play the political offices in advising the Division’s Party committee and Command with contents and solutions of leadership and direction; timely discovered and solved difficulties, making sure that the political and ideological education has been done synchronously and unitedly, at the same time, directed and guided offices and units to strictly follow the planned educational programmes; actively checked, inspected and evaluated the learning results, made summaries, awards and learnt from experience; taken the results of political education as one important factor to assess the completion levels of organisations and individuals. Hence, the quality and effectiveness of the political and ideological education in the Division have been clearly and comprehensively improved. The annual political results for all participants have gained 100% of passing, of which, 90-96% of officers, 89-94% of non-commissioned officers and 81-85% of soldiers getting good and excellent.
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| The "Young officers' Dialogue" held by the Division |
Basing on the evaluation and analysis of the reality, the Division has actively reformed the contents, forms and methods of political education, making it suitable with each learner. Based on the seniors’ political education programmes and the reality of the assigned tasks, the Division has checked, adjusted and built the programmes and contents suitably with the reality and each learner; directed offices and units to proactively compile documents and lesson plans in echelon, combined the basic education with the ones defined by the units including their traditions and tasks, propaganda drafts of large holidays, seas and islands, noticeable news of national and international issues, new regulations of the law, etc. Besides, the Division has added some more special subjects and new contents attracted by the public which have affected the socio-economy, society and the armed forces so as to timely orient the awareness, thought and actions for cadres and soldiers.
Beside the forms of education and propaganda according to the Regulations of the General Political Department, the Division has flexibly and profoundly applied the education forms in an open way, making them suitable and close to the features, tasks and the psychology and awareness of cadres and soldiers. It is the flexible application that makes the political education contents less rigid and dogmatic, making them interesting and easy to be learnt and followed. Regarding the methods, offices and units have well combined the basic education with the continuing and tasked education, the general education with specific education for each learner. Especially, the Division has directed offices and units to proactively coordinated with the local governments, unions and families to understand each soldier’s situation, the ones of difficult families, minority groups, etc., in particular to have suitable educational methods, at the same time, educated through training, combat readiness, public relations, large campaigns by the Party, State, Military and localities; promoted the learning and following of Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and lifestyle to improve the awareness, knowledge, affection among comrades and the solidarity between the people and military.
Reality has shown that in order to gain high effectiveness in political education and ideological orientation for soldiers, it is necessary to bring into play the general strength of the Party and Youth organisations, unions and mass organisations within the unit, of which, the all-level political organs and cadres play the key roles. Therefore, the Division has attentively taken into account the training and quality improvement for this staff in both their political spirit, moral qualities and their professional and specific capability, assuring that the staff of political cadres and teachers of politics at all levels has enough quantity with increasingly higher quality. In its implementation, the Division has paid attention to selecting cadres who have had their comprehensive competence, good pedagogical methods and dedication to work, and well following the motto of “Offices training units, seniors training juniors”, “selectively training the weaknesses”; bringing into play the roles of offices and units in self-organising their regular training within the units in echelon. Annually, before the training sessions, the Division has organised the in-service drills and retraining for 100% political cadres to consistently agree with the contents and methods for political education, making sure that 100% political lesson plans must be approved by the seniors. The political departments at all levels have strictly maintained the regulation and discipline of checking the political lesson plans, attending the political lessons in the units. The Division has organised and directed offices and units to actively organise the regiment and division - level teaching contests and examinations in order to improve the knowledge, working skills of political education for junior cadres. Offices and units have created conditions for the political teaching staff to self-study and self-research to improve their general knowledge in the fields of politics, economy, law, culture, society and science. Besides, the Division has required the cadres and party members in general, the political staff in particular to nourish and train their qualities, morality and lifestyle in anywhere, at anytime and in all activities, really deserving to be the good examples for soldiers to follow, at the same time, to be close to soldiers, listen to and firmly hold their ideological development, apply the knowledge into orienting their thought and solving any ideological problems rightly at the grassroots level. As a result, 100% political teaching cadres at the grassroots levels have been skillful at designing the electronic lesson plans and teaching with the help of the Projectors, well done the task of political education in echelon.
Together, the Division has promoted the regularity building, discipline observance and the building of a healthy military cultural environment; well taken care of the spiritual and material life for soldiers. The Division’s party committee and command have directed offices and units to strictly maintain the rules of regularity building, discipline observance to create the self-awareness for soldiers to comply with the State’s law, the Military’s discipline and other regulations of the units. The Division has considered building the healthy military cultural environment, strictly implemented the Democratic Regulations at grassroots levels, Day of Politics and spiritual culture, Day of Law; cared for the improvement of the spiritual, material life, and the families for cadres and soldiers, hence, built for cadres and soldiers a pure and healthy lifestyle, a responsible life for themselves, their families and units, avoided the expressions of indifference and emotionlessness with their comrades so that they stayed dedicated to work and successfully accomplish all assigned tasks.
Thanks to the good implementation of the political and ideological education, cadres and soldiers of the Division have well determined their tasks, remained committed to work and strongly attached to the unit, well proved their traditions and qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era; been ready to receive and successfully finish all tasks, active in building the comprehensively strong, “exemplary, typical” unit. On bringing into play these results, the Division has continually implemented many solutions synchronously to make sure that their cadres and soldiers could have stable spirit and viewpoint, be firm in the targets and ideals, absolutely trust in the Party’s leadership, raise the revolutionary vigilance, be ready to receive and well accomplish all assigned tasks, contributing to the victory of the tasks of building the Military, firmly safeguarding the Fatherland in the new situation.
Senior Colonel NGUYEN THANH HUNG, Political Commissar of the Division