The Infantry Regiment 59, under the Division 301 of the Capital Military Command, founded on October 20th, 1971, is a unit mainly staffed by cadres and tasked with managing and training the reserve force and performing other contingency missions. Over the past 50 years of construction, combat, and development, in all tasks of combat in the South, economic development, and reservist management and training, cadres and soldiers of the Regiment have all brought into play the fine tradition of the municipal armed forces and the heroic Vietnam People’s Army, overcome difficulties and challenges, and strived for better task performance. With its considerable achievements, the Regiment has been given many noble rewards by the Ministry of National Defence, the Municipal People’s Committee of Hanoi, the Municipal Military Command of Hanoi, and the Infantry Division 301.

In recent years, to well perform the task of constructing and protecting the Capital City, the Regiment’s Party Committee and Command have synchronously taken various measures aimed at building an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Regiment and achieved a lot of encouraging results as a significant contribution to making the Division 301 and the municipal armed forces “revolutionary, regular, seasoned, gradually modern.” It should be noted that cadres and soldiers of the Regiment have always shown their political zeal, its quality of training and combat readiness has been increasingly raised, there is a positive change in the military standard order building and discipline management, the work of logistics and technical support has been well carried out, and a sense of unity and consensus has been maintained as the basis for its brilliant task performance.

To achieve those good results, first of all, the Regiment’s Party Committee and Command have focused their leadership and direction on building a politically, ideologically strong Regiment. This measure acts as a determinant to the building of an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong unit. Due to its particularities, the Regiment has directed its affiliates to raise cadres, employees, and soldiers’ awareness, responsibility, and determination to surmount difficulties and successfully fulfil all assigned missions. Emphasis has been placed on the Party’s guidelines on the military-defence work and the Homeland protection, the State’s law and policy, the characteristics and tasks of the municipal armed forces and the Regiment, the hostile forces’ plots and artifices, the Law on the Reserve Force, and the targets, requirements, contents, and measures of the building of an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong unit. To raise the quality of political education and ideological management, the Regiment has effectively realised the Project on “renewing political education at units in the new period,” diversified forms of education, closely combined political education with legal dissemination and discipline management, orientated its troops’ ideology, and built up its cadres, soldiers, and reservists’ incentive and resolve for the fulfilment of their task.

The conference to review the military-defence work and the Determination to Win Emulation Movement

Besides, the Regiment has adopted measures synchronously to completely settle weaknesses and improve all-level party organisations’ leadership capacity and combativeness. Due attention has been paid to building and cementing the unity within party committees, commands, offices, and units to contribute to building a politically, ideologically, morally, and organisationally strong Party Organisation of the Regiment, while great value has been attached to executing the Resolution of the 12th Party Central Committee’s 4th Meeting on the Party building and rectification, preventing and repelling the degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle as well as the signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” from within. At the same time, the Regiment has enhanced the Determination to Win Emulation Movement, seriously implemented the 13th Politburo’s Conclusion 01-KL/TW, dated May 18th, 2021 on continuing to execute the 12th Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle and the Campaign entitled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period, and opportunely commended collectives and individuals with outstanding achievements as an incentive for their self-improvement. As a result, in recent years, the Regiment’s Party Organisation has always successfully fulfilled its task, while all cadres, employees, and soldiers have kept their mind on their work.

To create the synergy for its task performance, the Regiment has focused on raising the quality of training and combat readiness. Based on the Resolution 939-NQ/ĐU, dated March 14th, 2013 by the Municipal Military Party Committee and the Resolution 345-NQ/ĐU by the Division 301’s Party Committee on “raising the quality of training in the period of 2013-2020 and beyond” as well as the Division’s directives, plans, and guiding documents, the Regiment’s Party Committee has issued specialised resolutions on leadership over the training task together with specific targets and measures in accordance with each group of troops. Prior to each training season, in addition to preparing facilities, lesson plans, training equipment, and training grounds, the Regiment has organised refresher courses for frame-A and frame-B cadres to enable them to manage and train their units. In the training process, adhering to the motto of “basics, practicality, thorough grasp,” the Regiment has comprehensively trained the standing force and the reserve force. In this regard, it has considered tactical training as the centre and technical training as the core. Importance has been attached to training troops how to fight enemies in urban areas, protect crucial targets and major political events, and master the existing weapons and technical equipment, particularly the new ones. After each training period, the Regiment has held contests and conferences to assess the training outcome, draw lessons, and multiply creative, effective approaches. Hence, the quality of training across the Regiment has been improved together with the absolute safety of personnel, weapons, and technical equipment.

Moreover, the Regiment has strictly maintained combat readiness, while developing, supplementing, perfecting, and practising combat documents under the preset projects and plans to ensure the fulfilment of its mission in the event. At the same time, it has maintained readiness to take part in natural disaster prevention and mitigation, search and rescue, and other contingency missions. Notably, since early 2020, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Regiment has been assigned to receive, manage, and serve citizens in quarantine zones. When receiving, managing, and serving Vietnamese citizens from 30 countries and territories back to domestic quarantine zones, cadres and soldiers of the Regiment have promoted a sense of unity and creativity, opportunely drawn lessons, dealt with all difficulties, and excellently fulfilled this task. For that reason, the Regiment has been twice presented with certificates of merit by the Minister of National Defence and the Municipal People’s Committee of Hanoi and many of its staff members have been given noble rewards.

In the military standard order building and discipline management, all available resources have been exploited to build a “bright, green, clean, scenic” Regiment. Its barracks have been regularly consolidated to ensure uniformity and regularity. Cadres and commands at all levels have heightened troops’ observance of the Constitution, the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and the Regiment’s regulations, aligned the military standard order building and discipline management with the building of a pure, healthy cultural environment, resolutely prevented and stringently handled violations of discipline and safety regulations during training, and ensured traffic safety. As a result, in recent years, the Regiment has witnessed no serious violation of discipline, minimised normal violations, and ensured the safety in all areas.

In addition to those above-mentioned measures, the Regiment has always attached importance to providing logistics and technical support for training, combat readiness, exercises, natural disaster prevention and control, and search and rescue. It has actively fostered crop/animal husbandry to practically contribute to improving troops’ life. It has enhanced the emulation movements, namely “the Military Logistics Branch follows Uncle Ho’s teachings” and “unit good at catering and ordnance management,” sufficiently provided entitlements and policies for cadres and soldiers, taken good care of troops’ health, ensured food hygiene and safety, and COVID-19 prevention and control when receiving, managing, and serving Vietnamese citizens from other countries in quarantine zones. Due attention has been paid to frequently carrying out the work of technical support, opportunely providing weapons, equipment, and technical means for all missions, and improving technical staff members’ professional competence. Besides, the Regiment has actively stepped up the movement of technical initiative and innovation and well implemented the Campaign of “managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment in a sustainable, effective, safe, economical manner, and ensuring traffic safety.”

Those above-mentioned results and experience will provide a solid foundation for the Infantry Regiment 59 to keep making itself “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong and capable of successfully fulfilling all assigned missions and bolstering its tradition of “good training, good combat, self-reliance, unity, and determination to win.”

Col. DANG XUAN TRINH, Commander of the Regiment