Commando Brigade 126 (hereafter the Brigade for short), renowned as a “Special elite” unit of the Navy, has always been prepared to “Strike first” and “Win the first battle” when faced with combat situations. To meet its task requirements in the new situation, the Brigade has been adopting a comprehensive set of measures to make itself “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong.

In the intense period of our resistance war against US imperialists, the Brigade was founded as a water-borne commando unit. With their courage, cleverness, and creativity, generations of the Brigade’s cadres and soldiers have overcome countless hardships to achieve extraordinary feats on river and sea battlefields, earning high recognition and numerous prestigious awards from the Party and State.

Preparatory work prior to a training course

In recent years, alongside combat readiness, training, exercises, and handling of situations, the Brigade has been assigned to take part in search and rescue operations in rivers and at sea, thus contributing effectively to addressing non-traditional security challenges. There is a fact that the situation in the East Sea has become increasingly precarious, with a worrying uptick in violations of our national sovereignty and sovereign rights by foreign vessels. Hostile forces have intensified their “peaceful evolution” efforts, seeking to instigate “self-transformation” and “self-evolution” from within. As a result, more demanding, complex, urgent requirements have been imposed on the protection of the Motherland in general, national sovereignty over seas and islands in particular. That situation has necessitated the Brigade adopting drastic, appropriate measures of leadership and direction. In this regard, building an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Brigade has been considered as a central mission, laying a foundation for improving its synergy, combat power, and task performance.

As the Brigade mainly operates in river and maritime environments and undertakes “special tasks” with high intensity and frequent exposure to danger, hardship, and even loss of lives, it has attached great importance to making itself politically strong. To this end, the Brigade has reinforced ideological and political education, ensuring that cadres and soldiers have steadfast political will, absolute trust in the Party’s leadership, revolutionary ethics, great determination, “political eliteness”, and a high degree of readiness to undertake and excellently fulfil any assigned task. While executing the Project on “Renewing political education in units in the new period” and following Directive 2423-CT/QUTW issued by the Central Military Commission Standing Board on “Renewing and improving political education in the new period”, all offices and units within the Brigade have strictly adhered to the Regulations on managing troop ideology. Attention has been paid to training all-level cadres to improve their educational methods and hands-on experience in managing, encouraging, and orientating troop ideology. These efforts have enabled cadres and soldiers to raise their political awareness, improve and bring into play the noble virtues of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers - Naval Commando soldiers”, and encourage them to overcome all difficulties and excel in their missions. Additionally, the Brigade has stepped up legal education and dissemination, especially during critical tasks, such as extended field training, exercises, search and rescue operations, and so on. Furthermore, importance has been attached to constructing “four-good” grass-roots party cells and organisations as well as the model in which “Party members provide assistance for the masses and subordinates”, with a view to enhancing the leadership capacity and combativeness of all-level party committees and organisations. Simultaneously, the Brigade has closely carried out the work of internal political security, ensured the absolute safety regarding political matters, well conducted inspection and supervision work, and effectively performed party and political work during tasks.

To reach an “elite and highly skilled” level, the Brigade has constantly innovated and improved training work. In addition to rigorously implementing resolutions, directives, plans, and instructions on training and combat readiness, the Brigade has identified emulation movements as a driving force to enhance its training quality. Accordingly, offices and units within the Brigade have actively engaged in the Determined-to-Win Emulation Movement, fostered competitiveness in training, well conducted propagation about emulation objectives, breakthroughs, and model unit building, thereby cultivating a strong incentive and determination for emulation across the Brigade.

Ahead of each training season, alongside carefully preparing lesson plans, lectures, and training grounds, the Brigade has organised the competition titled “Training Aid Model”, aimed at encouraging its cadres and soldiers to contribute their innovative ideas and improve training aids for the sake of the improved training quality and solid training outcome. Since 2019, the Brigade has recorded over 60 initiatives and innovations related to training equipment, 2 of these have won the Military Creative Youth Award. Many new initiatives and models have been applied to training with high practical value.

Taking part in search and rescue operations in the sea of Quang Tri province in 2020

By adhering to the principles and guidelines of training, coupled with the determined and efficient execution of emulation movements, the Brigade has managed to build up self-awareness of physical training and determination to overcome difficulties among its troops, thus directly contributing to improving the training quality. Competitions and inspections of training results and combat readiness have been conducted rigorously with numerous innovations. Specialised training content, such as long-distance tactical swimming, sea survival floating, deep diving, and parachuting from helicopters onto targets, has consistently met or exceeded set targets. For many consecutive years, the Brigade has been recognised as a Good Training Unit by the Ministry of National Defence and has won numerous awards in various competitions.

As its affiliates are stationed across multiple provinces and cities from North to South, the Brigade has vigorously promoted regularity building and discipline management, with a particular focus on strengthening troop management. Emphasis has been placed on intensively realising Resolution 1683-NQ/ĐUQC dated 9 June 2020 by the Navy’s Party Committee on “Strengthening regularity building, discipline management, and safety assurance to meet the task requirements in the new situation”. Offices and units within the Brigade have been required to operate in accordance with their functions and regulations, strictly maintain training schedules, and ensure that all personnel comply with rules, exhibit military cultural behaviour, uphold discipline, and demonstrate integrity. Concurrently, offices and units have been asked to strictly manage their personnel both inside and outside barracks, during days off and rest hours, especially at independent stationed sites, with a view to preventing violations of state laws and military discipline. Regular and unscheduled inspections have been conducted to examine the observance of regulations, opportunely handle shortcomings, draw lessons, and resolutely address any signs of lax management or discipline. A close combination of proactive prevention and strict handling of disciplinary violations has been employed to raise troops’ awareness and responsibility. Regularity building and discipline management have been closely linked to the building of a healthy cultural environment and the construction and consolidation of “regular, green, clean, and beautiful” barracks to enable troops to keep their mind on their work. As a result, in recent years, the Brigade’s regularity building and discipline management have always been stable and solid, with the absolute safety in all aspects. Remarkably, the Brigade is one of the three units of the Navy that have witnessed no disciplinary violations requiring handling for four consecutive years.

In addition to the above-mentioned measures, the Brigade has focused on improving the efficiency of logistics and technical support, ensuring timely and comprehensive support for all tasks. Accordingly, the Brigade has strictly managed combat-readiness logistics materials, regularly reviewed, adjusted, and supplemented various logistics documents and plans, with a focus on logistics plans for transitioning to states of combat readiness, logistics support plans for combat to protect national sovereignty over seas and islands, etc. Scientific and appropriate rations have been developed for forces on the ground and at sea, especially for frogmen, divers, and paratroopers, ensuring food safety and hygiene to maintain troops’ health. Close cooperation has been maintained with the Air Defence - Air Force Service to conduct medical examinations for paratroopers, ensuring that they meet necessary standards to effectively carry out their tasks. At the same time, the Brigade has prioritised the timely and adequate provision of weaponry and diving equipment, meeting its task requirements, ensuring safety, particularly during combat readiness scenarios in Naval regions. Rigorous technical inspections before, during, and after tasks have been executed. The Brigade has also linked the implementation of “Campaign 50” with two technical breakthroughs, particularly in utilising advanced technical equipment to support specialised tasks.

With a commitment to natural disaster prevention and mitigation, and search and rescue as a “combat mission in peacetime”, the Brigade has proactively prepared human resources, contingency plans, and means. Regardless of circumstances, troops of the Brigade have always been ready to courageously, opportunely perform this work. Doing so has enabled the Brigade to not only uphold the illustrious tradition of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers - Naval Commando soldiers”, but also hone its troops’ resilience, courage, expertise, and problem-solving skills in unexpected situations as the basis for enhancing its overall combat strength.

Driven by high political determination and scientific, effective, and innovative solutions in leadership and implementation process, the building of an “exemplarily and typically” comprehensively strong Brigade has witnessed an increasingly solid positive change. This is an important foundation for cadres and soldiers of the Brigade to persistently strive to surmount all challenges and wholeheartedly fulfil assigned tasks, thereby deserving to be an “elite, highly skilled” force of the Navy.

Sr. Col. PHAN VAN CANH

Commander of the Brigade