The Infantry Division 309 under the Army Corps 4 is stationed in the Southern key economic region where many industrial zones are located and the population density is very high due to a large number of migrants from different provinces and cities across the country. Social evils in this region are quite complex. Meanwhile, most of the cadres in charge of managing soldiers are young and their capacity and experience in managing, educating and training soldiers have yet to meet the task requirements. Moreover, soldiers’ awareness and educational background are different. That has made great impacts on soldiers’ awareness and ideology and their observance of law and military discipline. Hence, over the time, the Division’s cadres and soldiers’ observance of law and military discipline has been still limited. Violations of military discipline have occurred, which has negatively impacted on the Division’s task performance. Against that backdrop, the Division’s Party Committee has issued the Resolution 421-NQ/ĐU, dated February 24^th, 2020 on furthering law and discipline management and education and ensuring safety together with many comprehensive solutions, while combining legal propagation, dissemination and education with military standard order building and discipline management as an important measure.

First of all, the Division’s Party Committee has promoted the role of all-level party committees, party organisations, and commanding systems in legal propagation, dissemination and education. In fact, when party committee and command of a unit or an office are fully aware of legal propagation, dissemination and education, violations of discipline by troops within that unit will be reduced or in a small number. Therefore, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have directed offices and units to seriously grasp legal normative documents under higher echelons’ guidance and raise their awareness of the role and importance of legal propagation, dissemination and education, particularly to the Division’s current situation. Grounded on the specialised Resolution by the Division’s Party Committee, the all-level party organisations have issued their own resolutions on leadership over legal propagation, dissemination and education, while commanders at all levels have been responsible for developing and including plans for this work in the training and political education programmes in accordance with each group of troops. Quarterly and monthly, party cells within the Division’s Party Organisation assess the results of their leadership over legal propagation, dissemination and education and opportunely supplement measures for this work. In order that this work would be synchronously carried out, the Division has promoted the role of the Council for coordination in legal propagation and education as well as the role of political offices and cadres in counselling and proposing measures for leadership, helping and inspecting units. 

Commanders of the Corps and the Division examining soldiers’ legal knowledge

The quality of legal propagation, dissemination and education greatly depends on law reporters and lecturers’ ability and skills. Hence, the Division has consolidated and improved this contingent, while selecting cadres with good qualities and capacity, especially commissars, cadres in charge of propaganda and training, military security cadres, and cadres of the Youth Union to be law reporters and lecturers. They have been provided with courses on profession, skills, and working method and encouraged to self-study by commanders of the Division’s units and offices. Moreover, on-the-spot training courses have been combined with the dispatch of those cadres to study at military schools. The Division has proactively cooperated with competent offices, such as Dong Nai Provincial Justice and Public Security Departments in organising specialised training courses and talk shows and providing information about the observance of law in the area for law reporters and lecturers within its units. Besides, it has supplied sufficient legal documents and information to its law reporters and lecturers. Doing so has allowed the Division to build a pool of law reporters and lecturers who would be capable of mastering and providing legal knowledge for each group of troops.

Furthermore, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have identified the content of legal propagation, dissemination and education in accordance with each group of troops. A focus has placed on educating new and first-year soldiers in the Military Service Law, military discipline and regulations by the Ministry of National Defence, the Army Corps 4, and the Division on the handling of violations that are not serious enough for prosecution, on military standard order building, and on traffic and training safety. As for the second-year soldiers, consideration has been given to enabling them to successfully fulfil the task and educating them in the Civil Code, the Penal Code, the Law on Marriage and Family, and the Law on Drug Prevention and Control so that they would well perform their civic duty after their military service. Officers and professional service men and women have been equipped with knowledge of legal documents relevant to their responsibility and task as well as with specialised topics about the work of leading, directing and commanding their units. The Division has frequently ensured that all cadres would be provided with sufficient training courses under its plans. After each training course, individuals have written reports and commitments as an important basis for performing the emulation - commendation work, assessing and appointing cadres and party members.

In addition to regular education under higher echelons’ guidance and plans, offices and units within the Division have enhanced propagation, dissemination and education of other essential topics, such as information about the observance of law in the area, illegal gambling and betting, loan sharking, and traffic accidents. Doing so has enabled offices and units to educate and orientate troops’ ideology, remain their vigilance against and prevent social evils from penetrating into the Division. To comply with the regulations on the mass mobilisation work in the area mainly inhabited by religious people, the Division has focused on disseminating and introducing the Law on Belief and Religion and the Decree 162/2017/NĐ-CP, dated December 30^th, 2017 stipulating several articles and measures for implementing the Law on Belief and Religion as the basis for encouraging the people to follow the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policy, combating the hostile forces’ wrong arguments and distortions, preventing and pushing back social evils, and building safe area.

To make the content of legal education “easy to remember and easy to understand,” the Division has flexibly employed various methods of education. Together with legal propagation, dissemination and education sessions, offices and units have actively organised dialogues, forums, group meetings to attract the participation of all soldiers. It should be noted that units within the Division have promoted the role of “Team for mental health and legal consultation” to deal with each soldier’s specific issues and meet their legal demand. Offices and units have well managed and exploited their “Law Bookcase,” diversified types of documents for legal propagation, strictly and effectively maintained the order for “Legal Study Day,” and included legal propagation and education in the Political and Spiritual Day, cultural and artistic performances, youth’s forums, and legal knowledge competitions. The Division has made investments in completing the system of noticeboards and posters, acquiring legal books, printing legal documents, building law bookcases, applying information technology to legal education, using models and smart boards for political lectures, designing electronic lesson plans, and delivering lectures with PowerPoint. Doing so has allowed the work of legal propagation, dissemination and education within the Division to flexibly, frequently positively impact on troops’ ideology and action in accordance with its particularities and to achieve practical results.

In order to make all soldiers self-aware to comply with law and military discipline, the Division has closely combined legal propagation, dissemination and education with the building of military standard order and the management of military discipline. Offices and units within the Division have enhanced measures for closely managing military discipline and troops’ manners, while strictly maintaining daily, monthly regulations on work and study. They have promoted each cadre and soldier’s self-awareness, self-education and self-improvement. Commanders at all levels have been required to set good examples in the observance of law and military discipline. At the same time, they have grasped troops’ ideology, cooperated with troop families and localities in managing their staff members, and assigned cadres and party members to keep a close watch on and help soldiers in difficult circumstance or those who have shown the signs of violation of discipline. Measures for troop management have been strengthened at sensitive moments, especially after strenuous training periods, leave, and field training marches or in days off and rest hours. The management of military discipline has been combined with the execution of the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.4 on the Party building and rectification, the 12^th Politburo’s Directive 05 on studying and emulating Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle, the Campaign entitled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers in the new period” and the Determination to Win Emulation Movement. The content of emulation movements have been centred on the compliance with state law and military discipline as an important criterion for evaluating how pure and strong a party organisation would be or whether a unit would be comprehensively strong. With its tireless efforts, since the beginning of 2020, the Division has witnessed no serious violation of discipline while the rate of normal violations of discipline has been below 0.2%.

Bringing into play the recorded results, in the upcoming time, the Division 309’s Party Committee and Command will continue exercising leadership and direction over legal propagation, dissemination and education and ensuring safety to make contributions to building a pure, strong Party Organisation and a comprehensively strong Division capable of successfully fulfilling all assigned missions.

Sr. Col. TRAN LE DUNG, Commissar of the Division 309