As an artillery unit of the Army Corps 1, the Brigade 368 is tasked with training, combat readiness, and other contingency missions. With the goal of becoming a role model of the Corps in executing the Determination to Win Emulation Movement for others to follow, over the years, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have focused their leadership and direction on building a comprehensively strong, “exemplary, typical” unit and particularly realising a breakthrough in military standard order building and discipline management so as to increase the Brigade’s synergy and combat readiness capacity. As a result, cadres and soldiers’ responsibility for military standard order building and discipline management has been enhanced while regulations on study and work have been seriously maintained. Troops’ law-abiding awareness has been raised. The Brigade’s barracks have been made green, clean, and scenic. A sense of unity has been achieved within the Brigade and it has ensured the absolute safety. Since 2015, the Brigade Party Organisation has always been pure and strong while many collectives and individuals have been rewarded. The following are the Brigade’s lessons drawn from military standard order building and discipline management.

Educating troops on tradition

1. Enhance all-level party committees and commands’ leadership and management as well as promote the vanguard, exemplary role of cadres and party members, especially the key ones in military standard order building and discipline management. On a yearly basis, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command direct affiliated offices and units to include military standard order building and discipline management in their resolutions and working plans and propose scientific, proper measures for this central task. Grounded on annual resolutions and working plans, the Brigade Party Committee has assigned its members to monitor offices and units’ performance of the task of military standard order building and discipline management, with emphasis placed on units with a lack of stability or those with the signs of violation of discipline.

The Brigade has encouraged cadres and party members’ role model-setting responsibility, asked “superiors, commanders, and party members to set good examples for inferiors and the masses to follow,” and used the results of military standard order building and discipline management as a criterion for the yearly evaluation of cadres at all levels. Violations of discipline across the Military have been announced to draw lessons and orientate troops’ ideology. The Brigade has also directed its offices and units to organise conferences to review military standard order building and discipline management, point out weakness, and work towards remedial measures.

Besides, the Brigade has frequently maintained the daily, weekly regulations and the order for commanding, office, and combat duty to ensure that it would always be ready for combat and successfully fulfil both regular and irregular missions. At the same time, due attention has been paid to patrolling and controlling barracks and ensuring the absolute safety within offices and units. When handling violations of discipline, the Brigade has grasped and followed the Circular 16/2020/TT-BQP, dated February 21^st, 2020 by the Ministry of National Defence on “regulating the application of disciplinary forms, order, procedures, and time limits and the authority to take disciplinary action within the Ministry of National Defence,” ensured democracy, objectivity, and transparency, and enabled troops to realise and rectify their faults. As for the independent forces and new soldiers, prior to each mission, units’ commands have educated them on the task requirements and the mass mobilisation regulations in order to encourage each person’ self-awareness and raise all-level cadres’ responsibility for management. To reduce and gradually terminate violations of traffic safety regulations, the Brigade has implemented various measures to manage personnel, vehicles, and facilities. Moreover, it has closely inspected vehicles’ technical conditions and required all cadres and soldiers to comply with the Road Traffic Law and uphold the traffic culture.

2. Strengthen legal propagation, dissemination, and education to raise troops’ awareness and responsibility towards military standard order building and discipline management. Considering it as a central task that would help create a solid positive change and improve its task performance, the Brigade has enhanced the work of legal propagation, dissemination, and education to render troops fully aware of the importance and necessity of observing the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and commanders’ orders in the process. Focuses of legal propagation and education have been placed on introducing legal normative documents, the Military’s regulations and tradition, and the Brigade’s statutes, particularly higher echelons’ directives and guiding documents on military standard order building and discipline management.

To that end, the Brigade has actively renewed the contents and methods of legal propagation, dissemination, and education in accordance with each group of troops. Importance has been attached to exploiting the system of internal radio and diversifying the forms of legal education with a view to raising troops’ awareness of military standard order building and discipline management. Additionally, the Brigade has well organised the “Legal Study Day” and the models, such as “study an article of law every week” and “one question on a daily basis,” while aligning military standard order building and discipline management with the Determination to Win Emulation Movement and other ones, such as “the Brigade’s youth and traffic culture,” “the year of discipline - 2020,” and “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period. It should be noted that the Brigade has selected 2 representative units from its affiliates as the role models in military standard order building and discipline management to draw lesson and multiply them across the Brigade. It has cooperated with the Public Security of Bim Son town in exchanging and gathering information, reporting the security situation in the area, giving instructions on avoiding violation of law, and raising troops’ law-abiding awareness. Thanks to those actions, there has been a huge positive change in legal dissemination and education as well as in cadres and soldiers’ responsibility for observing law and discipline; since 2016, the Brigade has witnessed no serious violation of law while the rate of normal violations has been below 0.18%.

3. Promote democracy, improve troops’ material and mental life, and build “standard, green, clean, and scenic” barracks. To create a democratic and lively atmosphere in the performance of tasks and arouse troops’ responsibility for military standard order building and discipline management, the Brigade has stringently implemented the Regulation on Democracy at grass-roots level. First of all, the Brigade has encouraged democracy in performing its missions and placed emphasis on enhancing troops’ material and mental life. It has seriously maintained the Political and Cultural Day, organised democratic dialogues between commanders and soldiers, and improved the quality of the “box of feedback” with the aim of enabling the Brigade’s command to grasp troops’ thought and aspirations and proactively plan measures for dealing with ideological issues right at grass-roots level. On national holidays and days off, the Brigade has organised entertainment and sports programmes in accordance with the characteristics of each office and unit so as to attract the participation of a large number of cadres and soldiers, closely manage the strength, and reduce violations of the State’s law and the Military’s discipline. Due regard has been paid to upgrading accommodations, workplace, internal roads, panels, posters, signboards, and bonsai gardens as the basis for troops to keep their mind on their work. Doing so would also enable the Brigade to make preparations for taking part in the Corps-level contest on “standard, disciplined, safe” unit and office.

4. Encourage the role of mass organisations, particularly the Youth Union in military standard order building and discipline management. Youth union members play an important role in units’ military standard order building and discipline management. Hence, the Brigade has directed the mass organisations to propose measures for building standard offices and units and raising troops’ law-abiding awareness. Cadres and soldiers have been required to write commitments to observing the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, the Brigade’s regulations, and legal documents on traffic safety. Youth unions have organised proms and forums entitled “the Brigade’s Youth with law, discipline, and traffic safety,” while participating in the “Soldiers 2020” programme with a view to mobilising and educating the youth, building up their incentive for study and self-improvement, rendering them fully aware of their task, and encouraging them to comply with law, discipline, and units’ regulations. Consideration has been given to multiplying “good people, good deed” examples and effective models, such as “youth union branch without violation of discipline,” “youth union branch with good training, unity, strict discipline, and a high level of combat readiness,” and “legal study day within women’s union” as the basis for building a healthy cultural environment across the Brigade. Things mentioned above are lessons learnt from military standard order building and discipline management at the Brigade 368, the Army Corps 1. Those lessons have greatly contributed to making the Brigade’s offices and units comprehensively strong, “exemplary, typical,” and capable of successfully fulfilling all assigned missions.

Sr. Col. TRAN TRUONG GIANG, Commander of the Brigade