In the final stage of the war against America, for national salvation, on May 17^th 1974, the Army Corps 2 (also known as the Huong Giang Corps) - a main, strategic mobile corps under the Ministry of National Defence (MND) was founded and tasked with conducting medium and large-scale campaigns and destroying the enemy with the strength of joint operations to change the complexion of the war and achieve the decisive victory on the battlefield. Fully aware of its position and assigned task, after its inception, the Corps quickly consolidated its organizational structure, performed the training work, built the units, engaged in combat, and achieved many brilliant feats of arms. Its history is linked to its resounding victories in Nong Son, Thuong Duc, La Son, and Mo Tau. In the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising, some units of the Corps took part in the Central Highlands Campaign and cooperated with other units in destroying the enemy’s 23^rd Division, liberating Buon Ma Thuot town, and creating a change of strategic importance. At the same time, it cooperated with the on-spot forces in launching attacks to liberate Hue and Danang, continued “fighting the enemy to move forward and paving the way for advance” at the lightning speed, completely liberated other provinces of the Central Coast, and opened wide the “defensive gate” of Saigon. Notably, in the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign, it staged attacks in the East and Southeast of Saigon, developed its offensive, put Vietnam’s flag on the top of the Independence Palace, captured the cabinet of Saigon puppet regime, and greatly contributed to the country’s national liberation cause.

The natural disaster prevention and combat and search and rescue exercise

After the country was unified, the Corps continued to be engaged in the fight to defend the Northwest border, perform the international mission, helped the Cambodian people topple the Pol Pot - Ieng Sary dictatorship, safeguarded the North border, and successfully fulfilled its assigned task. Over the past 45 years of building, fighting, and maturing, its generations of officers and soldiers have built up the tradition of “lightning speed, daring, and determination to win”; it has been given many noble awards by the State and the MND.

In recent years, to meet the requirements for the Homeland protection, the Corps’ Party Committee and Command have taken various measures to make itself comprehensively strong and unceasingly promote its tradition in the new condition. As a result, its task performance, particularly in the training and combat readiness work as well as its synergy and combat strength have been raised; its cadres and soldiers’ ideology has been stabilized; a sense of unity among its cadres and soldiers has been maintained; it has ensured safety and accomplished all routine and contingency missions.

Those achievements have been attributed to its Party Committee and Command’s comprehensive execution of its tasks under the Directive 917/1999/CT-QP, dated June 22^nd 1999, by the Defence Minister on building strong units comprehensively, with a focus on building a strong Corps politically as the basis for fulfilling all assigned tasks. To do so, the Corps has directed the party committees and commands of its offices, units, and schools to concretize the Project on “renewing political education at military units in the new period” into the targets, requirements, and measures. At the same time, units and offices have been asked to actively undertake researches, comprehensively renew contents, programs and methods of education, closely combine education under the basic program with traditional education and ideological orientation via activities, such as visits and dialogues, with a view to making all soldiers grasp the Party’s guidelines, the State’s law, the Military discipline, the units’ task, and the hostile forces’ plots and artifices. Most notably, cadres and soldiers must clearly understand the importance and necessity of building comprehensively strong units and then raise their political will, awareness, responsibility, vigilance, and determination to overcome all difficulties and fulfil their task.

The 2018 exercise

Besides, the Corps’ Party Committee and Command have directed offices and units to take various measures to raise the all-level party committees and organizations’ leadership capacity and combativeness; to focus on completely overcoming their weaknesses under the Resolution of the 12^th Party Central Committee’s 4^th Plenum on the Party building and rectification; to align the building of politically, ideologically, organizationally, morally strong party organizations with that of comprehensively strong units. In this regard, significance has been attached to combining the building of party committees with that of key cadres, and the building of cadres with that of party members, with priority given to ensuring the quality and quantity of cadres for the full-strength units tasked with training and combat readiness. Moreover, the Corps has directed its units to maintain the order for the party work, the political work and the Determined to Win emulation movement in line with the 12^th Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW, dated May 15^th 2016 and the Central Military Commission (CMC) Standing Board’s Directive 87-CT/QUTW, dated July 8^th 2016, with great value attached to promoting and heightening the role model-setting responsibility of key cadres. Consequently, at present, the Corps’s all-level party organizations, commands, and mass organizations are made strong comprehensively while the grass-roots level democracy is encouraged. In 2018, 100% of its party organizations and 92.7% of its party members successfully and excellently fulfilled their tasks.

While concentrating on making itself politically strong, the Corps has prioritized its organizational structure adjustment and the reform in the quality of training and combat readiness.  Grounded on the CMC’s Resolution 606-NQ/QUTW, dated June 16^th 2018, on realizing the Politburo’s Conclusion 16-KL/TW, dated July 7^th 2017 on the organization of the Vietnam People’s Army towards 2021, the Corps’ Party Committee and Command have adjusted its force organization in a “compact and strong” manner under the higher echelons’ regulations. The Corps has strictly, carefully performed this work with its improved combat strength as the highest target, while well conducting the ideological work and the policy work in order to avoid affecting its task performance.

In the training work, the Corps has directed its affiliated units to grasp and seriously implement the CMC’s Resolution 765-NQ/QUTW, dated December 20^th 2012, and the Corps’ Party Committee’s Resolution 253-NQ/ĐU, dated June 13^th 2013, on raising the training quality in the 2013-2020 period and beyond. To ensure the even results of training between its units, the Corps has focused on renewing the work of building model training units. In the past, it built only one model training unit; however, at present, it is building 3 model units from 3 groups of units, namely full-strength infantry units, cadres-based units, and arm units in order to draw the lessons and raise the training quality within the entire Corps. In addition, it has renewed its training work in 4 points (mechanism for training direction, management, and operation; training content and program; organization and method of training; combination of training and combat), and provided training courses for all soldiers under the plans/programs. In the training process, its units have observed the viewpoints, principles, and regulations on the training staff work, with emphasis placed on passing the combat experiences, educating units’ tradition, and bolstering troops’ faith in the existing materiel, the Corps’ combat method, and Vietnam’s military art. Units have also stepped up the training work under the motto of “basics, practicality, and thorough grasp”, with consideration given to making troops of arm units master new materiel, training shooting skills, organizing night-time, tasks-based, situations-based training, and combining field tactical training with heavy-load marches on complex terrains of all types so as to enhance troops’ resilience and manoeuvrability.

Together with the training work, the Corps has actively improved the quality of combat readiness; developed, frequently reviewed, supplemented, and completed the system of combat determination, plans and projects; stringently maintained the order for commanding, unit, and combat readiness duty; organized patrols and guard to ensure offices and units’ safety. Notably, importance has been attached to raising the quality of practising the shift of combat readiness states and the quality of live-firing tactical, defensive zone exercises, such as “strategic operations on the Northern battlefield” (MB-17), “joint combat” (DT-17), “one-side, two-level command-staff on the map together with the cyber space warfare on the Northern battlefield (ĐK-18), ensuring safety and relevance to combat reality, which has been highly appreciated by leaders of the Party, State, CMC, and MND.

The work of discipline management and logistics-military support has been carried out scientifically, properly via various measures. In this regard, focuses have been placed on elaborating the Corps’ special resolution on “enhancing troops’ observance of law and discipline and ensuring their living standard” into targets and measures in accordance with each group of troops, the task, and the particularities of the area; on closely combining the raised quality of implementing daily, weekly regulations and observing the Military discipline and the State’s law with the work of building standard, exemplary offices and units. As a result, in recent years, 100% of the Corps’ affiliates have satisfied the criteria for a “standard, exemplary, and safe unit”.

The logistics work has been conducted comprehensively; the Corps has taken various measures to renew the method of logistics support and the mechanism for financial management sufficiently, opportunely for its tasks, particularly its training, combat readiness and exercises. Troops’ life has unceasingly improved while the rate of healthy soldiers within the Corps has always been above 98.5%. In the technical work, the Corps has attached importance to managing, preserving and synchronously maintaining its materiel and vehicles. At the same time, it has well maintained the order and regulations for the technical work at all levels, with emphasis placed on upgrading and constructing garages and artillery shelters, and supplementing technological equipment for its repair stations and workshops, thereby raising the capability in repairing new equipment, meeting the requirements of technical support for its missions.

With those creative, assertive, and comprehensive approaches, the Army Corps 2’s synergy and combat strength have been increasingly improved to meet the requirements of a main, strategic mobile unit. The Corps always maintains readiness to successfully fulfil all tasks assigned by the Party, State, Military and people.

Maj. Gen. Nguyen Huy Canh, Commander of the Army Corps 2