The Arms Depot K336 under the Air Defence - Air Force Service’s Technical Department was established on December 12th, 1990 (its forerunner was the Battalion 36 under the Service’s Logistics Department) and tasked with receiving, preserving, and allocating weapons, equipment, and strategic technical materials within the Service. In its early days, the Depot had only 50 cadres and soldiers, its facilities and equipment had been used in wars and experienced a serious deterioration, and it was assigned to receive, retrieve, allocate, preserve, and store weapons, equipment, and technical materials and ensure the safety of materials, goods and sub-depots. However, with the spirit of self-reliance, in a short time, the Depot quickly stabilised its organisational structure and surmounted all hardships to undertake and successfully fulfil all assigned tasks.
In 2001, after receiving the lethal aerial arms depot of the Air Division 372 and being renamed the Arms Depot K336, it has been provided with diverse types of goods; in addition to weapons, equipment, and technical materials, there were lethal arms, aerial materials, and specialised vehicles. Besides, being impacted by climate and weather, a number of weapons, technical equipment and aerial materials have undergone a rapid deterioration. Meanwhile, the Depot’s funding, facilities and preservation technology have yet to meet its task requirements. Against that backdrop, the Depot’s Party Committee and Board of Management have focused their leadership and direction on improving the organisational work, the personnel work, and staff members’ task performance and life, while building up their determination to overcome all difficulties and successfully fulfil all assigned missions. The Depot has received hundreds of missile warheads after they had been repaired at factories. It has effectively applied the technology for preserving and storing missiles via the dehumidifier circulation system, managed, repaired, preserved and stored air defence artillery pieces and commanding machines from units, transported and handed over hundreds of tons of air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles to the Factory A45 and the Air Defence - Air Force Military Technical Institution with the absolute safety. At the same time, it has quickly, accurately, safely received and allocated hundreds of tons of bombs and ammo and thousands of infantry rifles to the Department of Weaponry under the General Technical Department, together with a huge amount of weapons, equipment, technical materials, radar materials, and specialised vehicles.
The task of receiving, preserving and allocating the Service’s weapons, equipment and strategic technical materials, including the valuable, rare, modern ones seems to be a monotonous, quiet job but it requires each person’s meticulousness. A lack of responsibility for preserving, receiving, preserving and allocating weaponry and safety regulations will lead to unpredictable consequences and negatively impact on the task performance of the Depot and other units. Thus, it is vital to maintain and strengthen the Party Committee’s leadership over all activities of the Depot, while all-level commanders should exercise close direction over their unit’s task. To that end, the Depot’s Party Committee has directed its affiliates to well execute their plans on building pure, strong party committees and organisations as well as comprehensively strong units. Great value has been attached to enhancing the leadership capacity and combativeness of sub-depots’ party cells and making a positive change in party committee members and secretaries’ role in raising the quality of party meetings and the effectiveness of implementing resolutions. All-level party committees have proactively developed, perfected and stringently executed working and leadership regulations. Resolutions by the Depot’s Party Committee and party cells have been effectively implemented in accordance with each unit’s practical conditions, with a focus on overcoming weaknesses, building the Party Organisation, a contingent of cadres, and comprehensively strong units, dealing with urgent issues, and fulfilling the central political task.
Due attention has been paid to educating and managing party members, aligning the ideological work with the organisational work in the management and training of party members, actively encouraging party members with their poor task performance to improve themselves, and promoting cadres and party members’ vanguard and exemplary role in performing the assigned missions. As a result, the Depot’s Party Organisation has been rated pure and strong for many years. On a yearly basis, over 80% of the Depot’s party cells successfully or excellently fulfil their task.
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| Exchanging experiences in technical training |
Furthermore, all-level commanders have actively, proactively developed units’ working plans and strictly maintained the “standard, careful, meticulous, and scientific” working method within units. To improve the efficiency of command, the Depot has clearly assigned the responsibility and authority to each staff member and designed regulations on function, task, power, and working relationships at each level.
To meet the increasingly demanding requirements of managing, preserving, and allocating the Depot’s goods and respond to an increase in weapons, materials, and equipment, including many hi-tech, valuable and rare ones, each cadre and employee within the Depot must heighten their responsibility, honesty and integrity. Fully aware of it, the Depot’s Party Committee and Board of Management have always placed emphasis on improving the Depot’s cadres and employees’ political zeal, pure morality, “industriousness, thrift, and integrity” and their professional competence. Staff members within the Depot have been recruited carefully, all of them have shown their political zeal and pure morality, and they have weathered all difficulties and material temptations to successfully fulfil all assigned tasks.
To improve its task performance, the Depot has frequently well conducted the work of political and ideological education to raise its cadres, employees and soldiers’ awareness and responsibility and build up their determination. The Depot’s Party Committee and Board of Management have required party committees and commands of offices and sub-depots to proactively carry out the work of ideological orientation for their inferiors, resolutely fight against deviations and wrong actions within each unit, and opportunely, completely deal with arising issues right at grass-roots level.
Moreover, the Depot’s Party Committee and Board of Management have effectively organised emulation movements, while combining the Determination to Win Emulation Movement and others, namely “five-good depot,” “exemplary depot,” and “youth’s depot” with the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle and the campaigns, namely “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers in the new period” and “managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment effectively, sustainably, safely, economically, and ensuring traffic safety” in accordance with each staff member’s duties and tasks. Cadres, employees and soldiers within the Depot have always heightened the spirit of self-study and effectively employed both manual and advanced methods of preserving each type of weapons and materials. On an annual basis, the Depot holds competitions, such as “excellent communicators and political teachers,” the “sports, gymnastics, and traffic safety,” “fire prevention and control competition,” and “standard, green, clean, scenic barracks,” thereby making contributions to bettering its task performance and creating a vigorous emulation atmosphere within itself.
All-level party committees and commands have regularly concentrated their leadership and direction on building comprehensively strong, “typical, exemplary” units, improving troops’ living conditions, closely managing their soldiers, and stringently maintaining military discipline. The Depot has spent tens of millions of VND from crop and animal husbandry on upgrading barracks and synchronously building spacious, green, clean, and scenic facilities from offices to sub-depots. Bringing into play their self-reliance, offices and units within the Depot has developed agricultural production according to the VAC model, effectively maintained land for planting timber trees, and actively fostered crop and animal husbandry to improve troops’ life and increase their funding. Annually, they harvest tens of tons of vegetables and fruits of various types. The yearly average revenue from animal and crop husbandry is between 1,3 and 1,5 million VND per capita, which exceeds the preset target.
The Depot’s Party Committee and Board of Management have always attached special importance to ensuring safety. In addition to modern equipment for the work of management, protection, and fire and explosion prevention and control allocated by higher echelons, the Depot has promoted its tradition of self-reliance, proactively repaired and upgraded a number of sub-depots and supplemented fire prevention and control equipment, thus making great contributions to maintaining the safety of its weapons, equipment and materials. Besides, the Depot has frequently conducted the work of propagation and education to encourage its cades, employees and soldiers to abide by the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and its statutes and safety regulations, particularly in the work of managing and preserving weapons, ammo and explosive materials. For many years, the Depot has not witnessed any serious violation or traffic incident. It has directed its offices and units to proactively design plans for combat, A2 task, evacuation, and fire and explosion, forest fire, and natural disaster prevention and control. Moreover, it has cooperated with other units and localities in its stationed area in practising combat projects and building safe units and areas.
Over the past 30 years of construction and development, generations of the Arms Depot K336’s cadres, employees and soldiers have always promoted a sense of unity and self-reliance. In the upcoming time, they will continue proactively weathering all difficulties to make the Depot increasingly strong and capable of successfully fulfilling its task of managing and maintaining weapons, equipment, and technical materials to contribute to raising the Service’s combat power.
Col. CU MINH CHIEU, Head of the Arms Depot K336