Over the years, a vast majority of young officers in the Military in general, Military Region 5 in particular have always devoted effort to successfully fulfilling all assigned tasks. However, due to the impacts of various factors, a number of young officers have yet to keep their mind on their work, negatively impacting on the task performance of their offices and units. Hence, fostering job passion amongst young officers so that they will overcome all difficulties and successfully fulfil their assigned tasks is of paramount importance.

Job passion makes people hungry for and responsible for their work, and ready to dedicate to their chosen profession. As for young officers of Military Region 5’s armed forces, in addition to those above-mentioned qualities, their job passion also includes their faith in the Party and revolutionary cause and their burning desire to dedicate themselves to the Military and commit to their military service, which acts as an incentive for their improvement in the military environment. Being fully aware of this fact, over the years, all-level party committees and commands in Military Region 5’s armed forces have always focused on educating and nurturing job passion amongst young officers in different forms, while creating the best conditions for their study, training, and self-improvement. Due attention has been paid to reviewing and supplementing personnel development programmes, proposing recruitment and training plans, and appointing young officers to positions according to their speciality. As a result, a majority of young officers have always remained their political steadfastness, kept their mind on their military career, shown a profound insight into their tasks, promoted a sense of responsibility, taken a pioneering role in the most dangerous and difficult places, stayed close to their troops in the performance of all tasks, and step by step asserted themselves in their positions. Most young officers believe that their military career is not only responsibility and obligation to the Fatherland; they love and stick with their military career so that they could grow up in the military environment.

However, there are a number of young officers who have not been fully aware of the values of their military career or concentrated on broadening their knowledge and experience; they have yet to put effort into study, training, and self-improvement. They have not shown their enthusiasm and responsibility for their work. They have yet to harmoniously manage the relationship between devotion and enjoyment. Thinking that “the grass is often greener on the other side of the hill”, they have just focused on their own personal interests. Some of them have shown their fading faith and led an irresponsible lifestyle, thereby violating law and discipline and losing their incentive for long-term military service. There are both objective and subjective reasons, such as the negative impacts of the market economy, family circumstances, and working environment, for those above-mentioned issues. However, in fact, some party committees and commands have yet to well perform the work of educating and fostering motivation and job passion amongst young officers. Hence, researching and proposing measures to nurture job passion amongst young officers is very important; it is the responsibility of all-level party committees and commands in the Military in general, Military Region 5’s armed forces in particular. Within this article, we put forward a number of measures to enhance this important work as follows.

First, regularly conducting education work to raise awareness of the value and position of military career and promote the need for self-study, self-improvement, and self-assertion amongst young officers. This is the most important measure as perception gives guidelines for practical action. That necessitates party committees and commands at all levels to grasp the importance of educating young officers on the value of military career; this task must go hand in hand with the process of developing young officers’ qualities and competence at offices and units. Significance should be attached to renewing contents and forms of educating and orientating young officers on job passion. While propagating the material value of military career as an important point, party committees and commands at all levels should focus on clarifying the socio-political value as it provides primary motivation for each young officer to overcome all difficulties and fulfil their tasks. Besides, great value should be attached to propagation and education work via political briefings, scientific conferences and workshops, the following and study of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality, and lifestyle as well as the assessment of party members and cadres in order to give career orientations and opportunely deal with perceptive deviations and negative attitudes towards military career amongst young officers. Organisations, forces, and especially all-level cadres should set good examples in terms of political steadfastness, morality, lifestyle, responsibility, professional competence, unity, and discipline for young officers to study and follow. At the same time, it is necessary to encourage young officers’ self-study, self-training, and self-improvement via criticism and self-criticism meetings and make objective, honest assessments of young officers so that they will realise their own strong and weak points and develop their plans to improve themselves.

Second, raising the quality of young officer management work at offices and units. This measure will lay an important foundation for grasping young officers’ political, ideological, and occupational orientation, attitude, and selection of occupational values. To that end, there should be proper solutions to improve young officers’ knowledge and skills, opportunely detect and settle ideological deviations and negative attitudes towards military career amongst young officers. Due attention should be paid to managing the professional competence, political qualities, morality, lifestyle, working style, needs, aspirations, living conditions, and family circumstance of every young officer. Moreover, all-level party committees and commands should actively renew the method of management and command, promote the role of organisations within their offices and units, and strengthen coordination between families, localities, and units to grasp young officers’ ideological situation, sentiment, needs, and social relationships.

Third, building a healthy working environment within offices and units to enable young officers to assert themselves in practice. Young officers in Military Region 5’s armed forces are often deployed to units directly tasked with high-intensity training and combat readiness and located in remote, isolated areas. Besides, some units’ facilities are not good enough for cadres and soldiers’ daily life and task performance; as a result, many young officers could hardly apply their knowledge or develop their creative ideas in practice. In order to overcome those difficulties, young officers must have love for their job and desire for devotion; they must be assigned to the right positions and promoted properly. Hence, all-level party committees and commands should well perform personnel work and offer young officers appropriate positions according to their talent and strengths. Grounded on task requirements, party committees and commands at all levels should focus on planning work, strictly abide by road maps for developing young officers, and demonstrate their regard and acknowledgement for young cadres’ efforts so as to build up young officers’ incentive and noble dream for military career. At the same time, it is essential to fight against all manifestations of bias and subjectivity in personnel work that could cause doubts and discontent amongst young officers, undermine their faith, cripple their efforts, disorientate them, and create bad public opinions within offices and units.

In order to give young officers a chance to experience new positions, due regard should be paid to carrying out the work of personnel rotation and placing young officers in new challenges, difficult tasks, and situations as the pressure on them to keep studying and training themselves in practice. Consideration should be given to providing the best living and working conditions for young officers to bring into play their talent and strengths. At the same time, it is necessary to formulate specific mechanisms in accordance with each unit’s general regulations and particularities to encourage young officers to apply their knowledge and promote their dynamism and creativity in the performance of their assigned tasks.

Fourth, offering good incentives for young officers in an equal, public, transparent manner. It can’t be denied that material and mental motivations have tremendous impacts on each person’s task performance. According to President Ho Chi Minh, “a powerful Military is the result of clever education, sound policies, and strict discipline”. To encourage young officers to keep their mind on their work, all-level party committees and commands should focus on well implementing the State’s policies in the Military, such as housing, family life stabilisation, and on-the-spot training and retraining so as to improve their material and mental life and satisfy their legitimate cultural and spiritual needs. Competent offices at all levels should proactively review the implementation of those policies to detect drawbacks and opportunely make amendments. Last but not least, offices and units should bring into play solidarity and comradeship, while actively giving assistance to young officers, especially those in difficult circumstances so that they could stabilise their life and keep their mind on their work.

Fostering job passion amongst young officers in Military Region 5’s armed forces represents a long-term process and requires the participation of organisations and forces as well as the synchronous, effective implementation of the measures put forward above.

Sr. Col. TRAN KIM QUYEN, Head of Military Region 5’s Division of Political Propaganda and Ideological Education