Infantry Division 5 is a main unit of Military Region 7, stationed in a strategic defensive direction, tasked with maintaining combat readiness, helping the people with natural disaster and epidemic prevention and control, and performing other contingency missions. The Division is stationed in a large area with a huge number of industrial zones and a large population. Besides, political security and social order and safety in its stationed area witness rather complex developments that greatly impact on the performance of its political task and its staff members’ compliance with the State’s law and the Military’s discipline. Against such a backdrop, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have proactively focused their leadership and direction on building a pure, strong Party Organisation and an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Division capable of successfully fulfilling all assigned missions. More importantly, the Division has synchronously, effectively adopted many measures to step up the work of law propagation, dissemination, and education.

First of all, being fully aware of the importance of this work to raising cadres and soldiers’ law-abiding awareness and culture, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have directed offices and units to include law propagation, dissemination, and education in their resolutions with specific guidelines, assignments, contents, and schedules. Law propagation, dissemination, and education have been aligned with political education and ideological management. All-level party committees and party cells have been required to review the outcome of law propagation, dissemination, and education in their monthly and yearly resolutions, with emphasis placed on raising individual and collective responsibility for this work and taking the performance of this work as a criterion for annual personnel evaluation and commendation. On a yearly basis, the Division Party Committee has consolidated the Division’s Law Dissemination and Education Council and a contingent of law rapporteurs with deep knowledge of law, great prestige, hands-on experience, and good teaching methods to effectively provide law propagation, dissemination, and education for troops. The Division’s Law Dissemination and Education Council has regularly organised conferences to opportunely rectify weaknesses and work towards guidelines and measures to improve the effectiveness of law propagation, dissemination, and education. The Council has frequently cooperated with competent offices, such as provincial departments of justice, provincial public security departments, and Military Region 7’s Military Court and Criminal Investigation Office in holding refresher courses for law rapporteurs of the Division. Besides, the Division has sent its law rapporteurs to attend training courses at schools and encouraged their self-study.

A democratic dialogue between the Division’s Command and soldiers

In order to achieve a positive change in all troops’ observance of the State’s law and the Military’s discipline, the Division has directed its offices and units to renew, diversify, and make the work of discipline education and management more attractive. The Division has directed its affiliates to organise classes to deliver specialised topics of law. Newly promulgated legal documents and information about discipline management and traffic safety have been included in political –news briefings and regular meetings. Offices and units of the Division have well organised movements to orientate troops’ ideology, such as “proposing measures to strictly comply with the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and units’ regulations and ensure traffic safety,” “bringing into play comradeship and building exemplarily, typically comprehensively strong units,” and “heightening a sense of responsibility, renewing work methods and styles, and well managing work relationships.” Each affiliate of the Division has established their own “feedback mailbox” and “hotline,” maintained politico-spiritual meetings, and enhanced the effectiveness of models, such as “team for psychological and legal consultancy,” “one political question and one political answer every evening,” and “exchanging experience in building exemplarily, typically comprehensively strong units” as well as troop clubs, and collective birthday parties. At the same time, offices and units of the Division have diversified methods of law propagation, dissemination, and education via forums and talk shows, such as “honour and responsibility of soldiers of heroic Division 5,” “hometown and soldiers,” “young officers pin faith on the Party and strive to deserve to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers.” Moreover, they have well carried out the work of propagation via their internal radio systems and legal knowledge contests, maintained law bookcases, and raised the effectiveness of the Political and Cultural Day at grass-roots level.

The Division’s Party Committee and Command have directed all-level party committees and commands to flexibly employ various forms and methods of education in accordance with their cadres and soldiers’ task requirements and educational backgrounds. Great value has been attached to studying specialised topics, organising news briefings, politico-ideological meetings, forums, and dialogues. At the same time, due regard has been paid to organising exchange and twinning programmes and performing mass mobilisation work to make a huge positive change in cadres and soldiers’ law-abiding awareness and determination to undertake and successfully fulfil all assigned missions. In addition, offices and units of the Division have organised troop clubs, collective birthday parties, artistic and sports events, and meetings with local party committees and authorities and soldiers’ families to provide information about each soldier’ training results, thereby enabling their leaderships and commands to grasp and well manage troops’ ideology. All affiliates of the Division have combined fundamental education with routine education, while aligning collective education with individual education. It should be noted that in recent years, the Division has proactively made investments in technology solutions for law education, such as electronic lesson plan and slide projector in law lectures. Besides, the Division has stringently maintained the “Legal Study Day” at its affiliates on a monthly basis, with a focus on introducing legal documents and higher echelons’ directives and guiding documents on troops’ observance of discipline, holding discussions about legal contents, and testing cadres and soldiers’ knowledge of the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and units’ regulations.

Furthermore, the Division has been proactive in ideological education and orientation, ideological forecast, ideological grasp, ideological management, and ideological struggle, while boosting the effectiveness of military standard order building and discipline management. In each difficult, complex mission, such as manoeuvre for combat readiness, training, and live-fire exercises as well as on national holidays and days off, offices and units’ party committees and commands have grasped their troops’ ideological situation to opportunely adopt measures of leadership and direction and ensure safety. Affiliates of the Division have formulated proper, specific measures to manage and educate soldiers with violations of discipline or poor task performance. Offices and units across the Division have strictly maintained daily and weekly regulations, stepped up military standard order building, renewed work methods and styles, opportunely rectified wrongdoings, and raised their cadres and soldiers’ self-awareness to observe the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and units’ regulations. The Division Party Committee has required all-level cadres to grasp their soldiers’ profiles, family backgrounds, and social relationships, particularly in crucial and confidential sections. When receiving new soldiers, all-level leaderships and commands have cooperated with localities in grasping those troops’ profiles, educational backgrounds, capabilities, moral qualities, health conditions, and social relationships via evaluations from localities and families as well as via self-assessments. All-level party committees and commands have also attached importance to commending and rewarding collectives and individuals with remarkable achievements, particularly in training new soldiers and helping the people with COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, thereby encouraging cadres and soldiers’ self-improvement. Movements, such as “youth play a vanguard role in preventing and combating crime, drug use, and prostitution” and “battalions and companies strive for good task performance, no violation of discipline, and absolute safety” have been well organised. Meanwhile, contests, such as “traffic knowledge” and “youth and discipline management” have been made relevant to each collective and individual’s task requirements. Doing so has enabled the Division to opportunely encourage its cadres and soldiers to overcome all difficulties and actively, self-consciously perform their tasks.

Thanks to those above-mentioned measures, there has been a dramatic positive change in troops’ observance of the State’s law and the Military’s discipline as well as in military standard order building, while violations of law, discipline, and safety regulations have been reduced. Notably in 2021, the majority of the Division’s cadres and soldiers strictly complied with the State’s law and the Military’s discipline and successfully fulfilled all assigned missions. Bringing into play those recorded results, Division 5’s Party Committee and Command will continue raising the quality and effectiveness of discipline education and management to contribute to building a comprehensively strong Division with a high level of synergy and combat power.

Sr. Col. PHAM ANH TUAN, Commissar of the Division