The 7th Division, 4th Army Corps is tasked with managing and training the reserve. On grasping Resolution No. 765-NQ/QUTW, dated December 20, 2012 of the Central Military Commission on “improving training quality for the period of 2013 – 2020 and beyond,” the Division Party Committee and Commander have focused on leading the improvement in training quality for the reserve through many synchronous, practical, effective measures.
First of all, the Division promotes political, ideological education to raise awareness and responsibility of category A officers and soldiers and the reserve for training. Given its characteristics of a standing-structure unit with reduced staffing, officers and soldiers are prone to improper thoughts, lack of incentive for work, and disregard for training requirements. The reserves, with military experience, are liable to subjectivism, disregard for and absolutisation of experience in training. The Division, therefore, directs its departments and units to regularly conduct education to enable officers and soldiers to gain proper understanding of the position and significance of building the reserve, especially Law on the Reserve, the Army Corps’ high demands of training and combat readiness in the new situation, honour to be part of combat formation of a strategic mobile regular army corps, etc., thus heightening their responsibility for implementation. The Division requests party committees and organisations and commanders at all levels to strengthen leadership of training work and effectiveness of party and political work in training; align training with emulation movements; promote compliance with the regulation on grassroots level democracy; bring into play the role of mass organisations and wisdom of all military personnel in overcoming difficulty to successfully complete training task. During realisation of training work, the Division applies multiple methods to match the need of each learner. As far as the reserve is concerned, as result of short training time, the Division closely combines military training with education of politics, legal matters, and task delegation. At the same time, it takes initiative in collaborating with local party committees, authorities, and military bodies to propagandise, educate, and get to know about feelings, aspirations, and family backgrounds of learners. Consequently, awareness and responsibility of officers and soldiers, especially those of the reserve, for training have been improved. They have shown their activeness and self-consciousness in training and readiness for mobilisation.

Receiving the reserves

The reserves under the Division’s management and training live and work in the provinces of Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, and Tien Giang. Most of them constantly work far from homes in industrial parks. Therefore, to mobilise the strength needed for training as requested requires the Division to instruct its departments and units to proactively collaborate with local authorities to develop and manage the human resources, and early inform localities and reserves about the time of attendance and training. This will help to ensure that localities and reserves have enough time to manage their work. Every year, the Division collaborates with local authorities to reexamine and inspect sources of reserve three or four times in order to register and control quantity and quality of reserve. Under the motto of “visiting every house, checking every address, keeping notes, and timely encouraging,” the re-exemination always satisfies the five-know demand and five-category registry. This will form the basis for allocating the reserves to units in the direction of “closeness to and completeness for specific areas” and the officers in the direction of “where there are soldiers there are officers.” Accordingly, a battalion-level unit is established within a cluster of communes, a company-level unit in one or two communes, a platoon-level unit in one commune, a section-level unit in some villages near each other, enabling both local authorities and the Division to control and mobilise forces. So far, 98.6 per cent of the reserves have been allocated to standing-structure units. The number of reserve officers is up to 90 per cent. The rate of military professionalism reaches over 81 per cent in infantry units and 56 per cent in arm units. These are the conditions for the Division to inspect the readiness for mobilisation and training.
Due to the reserves’ diversified background and short training time, to accomplish its training task requires the Division to make careful preparations in every aspect prior to training, including collaboration and coordination with localities to deliver and receive the reserves, cultivation of cadres, and preparation for training facilities and equipment. Every year, the Division instructs party committees at lower echelons to put forward specialised resolutions on leading the training of reserve and successfully conducts propaganda and education with a view to fostering willpower and determination. Commanders at all levels work out concrete plans and measures suitable to missions and conditions of each unit. The Division’s commanders and departments often carry out close inspection of preparation for training grounds and lesson plans for each type of learners, particularly the update to training contents and materials. As a result of poor investment in training infrastructure and equipment, the Division directs its units to take advantage of available training facilities and equipment and actively innovate teaching aids. It also successfully provides further education for cadres to enhance their competence in managing and training units as requested. Attention is paid to new contents and young officers. Thanks to effort and measures, 100 per cent of category A officers have been able to conduct training as requested so far. 80 per cent of them are graded as good. Over 80 per cent of category B officers can deliver training as requested. 70 per cent of company- and battalion-level officers are graded as fairly good. Basically, platoon- and section-level officers have displayed good management of their units in the training process.
The Division actively renews training contents and methodologies to suit types of learners and characteristics of the areas, enabling the reserves to become familiar with training programs for the standing force. Besides, the Division instructs departments and units to review the whole training contents and programs applied for each type of learners to ensure their congruence with practical operations of units and specific characteristics of the areas. The Division’s reserves have unequal education level, military professionalism, health, etc., thus leading to poor quality if they receive similar training. On perceiving these characteristics, the Division requests its units to employ various training methodologies, including combining general training with group training according to each training content, promoting extra training, and mutual assistance between learners. During training processes, the Division always sticks to the motto of “quality, practicality, effectiveness, focus”. Priorities are also given to synchronous, in-depth training. Accordingly, units follow a process which enables learners to proceed from low to high training level, from simplicity to complexity. Theoretical training is closely combined with practice, in which practice is the core. Soldiers are encouraged to revise lessons carefully, divided into smaller groups to have more chance for practice, rotated properly during training, and completely master each piece of training contents. Due to short training time, the Division requests its units to conduct comprehensive, in-depth training, which takes technical training as the fundamentals, tactical training as the core, and training in small-unit combat formations as the key, laying the foundation for combat drill and coordination up to battalion level. The Division is active in training people who wish to switch their specialties while maintaining and improving the rate of correct military professionalism. Moreover, the Division instructs party committees and commanders at all levels to strengthen inspection and democracy in training. After each training content,  units carry out demonstrations and competitions to assess training outcome in an objective, intrinsic manner; multiply good, creative, effective practices; and oppose any manifestations of subjectivism, fear of hardship, lowering of requirements, and obsession with achievements in training. In addition to regular training, the Division attaches special importance to carrying out command post exercises, field training exercises, and live firing at platoon and company levels, determining these are the most practical training methodology to improve expertise of officers and reserves. Hence, the Division always successfully accomplishes its training task. The training quality is greatly enhanced year after year. In 2020, the Division completed all training contents. All learners were graded competent. 78 per cent of them were graded fairly good and good. Live firings showed good results and were absolutely safe. The reserves were ready to undertake and perform their tasks.
Additionally, the Division well fulfils logistic support for the reserves during training at its locations. The Division requests its units to make careful preparations with the aim of creating the best living condition for the reserves. All standards of living are disclosed and adequately, timely insured. The Division collaborates closely with local authorities to implement the policy on military families for the reserves, thus contributing to the maintenance of the reserves’ health and minds on their training mission.
Based on outcomes and experience, the 7th Division is committed to further improving quality of training the reserve to contribute to strengthening defence capabilities as on a par with requirements and missions of national construction and defence.
Senior Colonel NGUYEN DUY DOAN
Division Commander