The Engineer Workshop No.10 under the Staff Department of Military Region No.3, established on July 20th, 1969, is in charge of ensuring technical equipment and military weapons for the Northern Engineer units and participating in the construction of defense facilities and economic-defensive projects in provinces (cities) of the Military Region. In addition, the workshop is also ready to participate in the tasks of search and rescue and natural disaster prevention and mitigation. Over 50 years of construction and development, generations of workshop's officers, soldiers and technicians have always upheld the active, proactive, creative spirit, made efforts to overcome difficulties, and successfully completed all assigned tasks. With the recorded achievements, in 2009, the Workshop was awarded the title of "Hero of the People's Armed Forces in the renovation time".

The ceremony to receive the title of “Hero of the People’s Armed Forces”

As the workshop is dispersed from the plain to the high land, from the border areas to the sea and islands areas, its Party Committee and commander have always determined to regularly and successfully conduct the task of legal propaganda, dissemination and education to build its cadres and soldiers’ strong political will so that they are ready to overcome all difficulties and challenges. First of all, the Workshop has regularly thoroughly grasped and strictly implemented the instructions and resolutions of the senior level, especially the Directive 63/2008/CT-BQP by the Ministry of National Defence on "Implementing the work of legal propaganda, dissemination and education in the People's Army, the reserve force, and the militia and self-defense force "; the Directive 04/CT-BQP on "Strengthening the management and education of discipline, preventing law violations and serious disciplinary violations in the Vietnam People's Army" and instructions, guidelines of the General Staff, the General Department of Politics on legal propaganda, dissemination, and education. Every year, the Party Committees of all levels issue specialized resolutions on legal propaganda, dissemination, and education; the commanders concretize the resolutions into the plans/programs for training, political education, and legal education at their units. In the monthly resolution, the party committees at all levels evaluate the results of leadership and direction over the work of legal propagation, dissemination, and education; promptly supplement relevant contents to meet the awareness level of officers and soldiers; uphold the responsibilities of the party committee members, commanders, functional agencies, and mass organizations in the process. Political agency often promotes well its role advising the Party Committee and command of the Workshop on well implementing the program and content of propaganda, dissemination and legal education for the army. At the same time, it actively builds plans, clearly identifies objects, time, and key contents in each period and each year; cooperates with agencies, sub-workshops, teams, working teams in surveying and assessing troops’ ideology and observance of State law and military discipline; strictly maintains the order for report at each level. Thereby, doing so has contributed to improving the quality of ideological education, orientation, management and forecast; promptly solving arising problems and preventing troops’ acts of violating law and discipline.

In order for effective propagation, dissemination and legal education work, the workshop’s Party Committee and command instruct the units to strictly implement the law education program; consider this as an important solution to adjust troops’ behavior, and build up their legal  and discipline awareness and culture.  Due to the different professions and uneven intellectual level of staff members, the command of the workshop instructs the units to focus on selecting content in accordance with each group of troops to develop the legal education plan, particularly new recruits, construction teams far from the headquarters; to attach the content of propaganda, dissemination and legal education according to the general program with education and propagation of the workshop's regulations in the management, preservation, maintenance and use of material and technical facilities, etc. Adhering to the law dissemination and education plans of the workshop, units require their staff members to study and grasp legal documents, decrees, circulars, and guidance by the State and the Ministry of Defense. For new soldiers, units focus on educating them on the Law on Military Service, the Road Traffic Law, the Military Regulations, and the regulations of the Engineer Corps, and the Workshop on discipline management, etc. For the technical staff, units educate them on the Civil Code, Criminal Code, Law on Marriage and Family. For cadres, soldiers, repairmen, and workers using explosives and constructing combat works, the absolute safety requirement is put first; therefore, the workshop’s Party Committee and command direct units to strengthen the management and supervision directly in combination with propaganda and education in order to make troops comply with the regulations on managing and using explosives, preventing infiltration, and keeping secret about the constructions, etc. In addition to the legal education topics under the higher echelons’ regulations, the workshop identifies a number of contents of propagation and education related to the work of ensuring safety in training, repair, production and construction. Doing so has helped equip officers and soldiers with basic knowledge of State law and Military discipline so that they could apply to their practical work to fulfill the assigned responsibilities and tasks.

The workshop’s Party Committee and Commanders always attach great value to constantly renewing methods of legal propaganda and education in an attractive, appropriate, and effective manner. To do so, the workshop cooperates with the Area 32 Procuracy under the Military Region’s Political Bureau in organizing legal propaganda, dissemination, and education for objects. Monthly "Law Day" is organized in various forms, with a focus on thoroughly grasping new legal documents and information on the disciplinary situation in the entire Army and units across the Military Region, democratically discussing preventive measures to minimize disciplinary violations in the units. In order to bring into full play the effectiveness of bookcases, legal books, the workshop proactively exploits material resources allocated by higher echelons, self-buys books, and encourages individuals donating and collecting documents to ensure adequate books and newspapers, and meet troops’ needs of research and reference. The use of documents is in accordance with general regulations while consideration is given to promoting the responsibilities of management staff, ensuring good management, and forming a movement to read books and newspapers in units and improve troops’ legal knowledge.

Helping the people with natural disaster prevention and control in 2018

In addition, the workshop’s Party Committee and command instruct agencies and units to closely cooperate with the local Party Committees and authorities and the Police in the stationed areas in firmly grasping the situation of political security and social order and safety to propagate and disseminate legal documents in the areas to soldiers. In the process, units attach legal education to the 12^th Politburo Directive 05-CT/TW on “studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and lifestyle", the campaign "Promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho's soldiers", "Managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment durablly, safely, economically, and traffic safety", the Determination to Win Emulation movement, and the movements: "Solidarity, discipline, creativity, safety, determination to win"; "Good training, strict discipline, and efficiency". Doing so has contributed to promoting a sense of responsibility and the will to overcome difficulties, strengthening the solidarity, unity, building a healthy cultural environment for cadres and soldiers’ self-improvement.

Recognizing the important role of cadres in the legal education work, the workshop’s Party Committee and command always pay due attention to improving the capacity of law officers and reporters. The workshop’s legal rapporteurs mainly hold more than one position; therefore, the qualifications, competence and pedagogical ability of some cadres are limited. In order to deal with this weakness, every year, the workshop’s Party Committee and command select and assign cadres who have good knowledge of the law, pedagogical ability, and work experience, show truly typical examples in law observance, discipline, ethics, and lifestyle, to participate in training courses on legal education held by higher echelons in combination with training courses at the Workshop. Through the forms, such as: model lectures and contests on teaching the topics of legal propaganda, dissemination and education, the workshop equips legal reports with new knowledge and comprehensively improve their capacity and method of teaching to meet the requirements of the unit's legal education mission. As a result, the quality of the law reporters and propagandists of the workshop has been constantly improved, which has contributed to improving the workshop’s effectiveness of legal propaganda, dissemination, and education.

The workshop’s Party Committee and command require cadres and commands at all level, particularly key cadres to closely monitor and supervise troops’ observance of discipline; promptly detect and rectify misconceptions and wrongdoings. Officers at all levels must always stay close to troops, listen to their opinions, grasp their ideology and aspirations, solve problems in a timely manner, avoid ideological passivity which could lead to discipline violations. Therefore, a positive change in soldiers’ observance of discipline has been achieved, which has contributed significantly to improving the workshop’ task performance.

The sound guidelines and appropriate, effective measures for law propaganda, dissemination, and education have actively contributed to building the workshop’s pure and strong Party Committee and a comprehensively strong workshop and enhancing the workshop’s combined quality, combat strength, and task performance. For many consecutive years, the workshop has been the leading unit of the Determination to Win Emulation Movement of the Military Region’s Staff Department and rewarded by the Ministry of National Defense and the Command of the Military Region; in 2019, the workshop was awarded the Second-Class Fatherland Protection Order by the State President. Those achievements provide a solid foundation for officers, soldiers and repairmen of the Workshop No.10 to uphold the Heroic Engineer Force’s tradition of "paving the way victoriously".

Col. Le Trong Dat

Commander of the Workshop