Bringing into play the tradition of the unit which has been awarded the Title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces three times, cadres and soldiers of Ba Gia Regiment have always been brave and determined to overcome all difficulties and challenges to successfully accomplish all assigned tasks, deserving the title of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era.

On 20^th November 1963, Ba Gia Regiment was established based on the units of “Division 1 - concurrently Quang Nam Provincial Military Command” and became one of the first two regular regiments of Military Region 5 in the anti-US resistance war for national salvation. The Regiment’s establishment has marked the new development in the scale of the regular forces, meeting the new and higher  demands for using the decisive military attacks which were the bases for the political struggle of uprising movements all around Military Region 5’s battlefields.

Over 60 years of building, combat and development, with 20 consecutive years of fighting in the anti-US resistance war for national salvation, the Southwestern border defence war and the international duty in Cambodia, attending dozens of campaigns and hundreds of battles with many different combat objects, the Regiment has gained ranges of feats of arms, with various battles recorded in the history such as: Ba Gia, Van Tuong, Dong Duong, Quang Thanh, etc. In this long way, the images of cadres and soldiers of the Regiment who were fearless to destroy enemies in the battlefields in the wartime or “eager to train regardless of sun or rain” in the training grounds, attending the military exercises in all terrains and localities, etc. in the peacetime have been familiar, spreading the qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” – Soldiers of the Heroic Ba Gia Regiment.

Oath swearing ceremony of new recruits

With these exceptional achievements, the Regiment has been awarded the Title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces three times in 1972, 1976, and 1979; 01 Independence Order; 16 Military Exploit Orders; 02 Fatherland Defence Orders (2^nd and 3^rd class); 56 Feat Orders of different kinds; 03 collectives and 08 individuals have been commended the Title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces and many other noble wards.

Presently, to meet the requirement of protecting the Homeland, the Regiment has focused on building the comprehensively strong, “exemplary and typical” unit, improving the general quality and combat strength with many synchronous and effective solutions in order to well accomplish the assigned tasks, deserving to be “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era.

Firstly, building the politically-strengthened Regiment being the basis for improving the overall quality, combat strength to meet the demand and tasks of “mobility and winning” in all situations. Accordingly, the Unit continues to grasp and seriously implement resolutions, directions of the superiors on building and rectifying the Party; promote studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and lifestyle and the Campaign of promoting traditions, devoting talents, deserving to be “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era; completely solve the shortcomings and weaknesses of each office and unit; improve the quality of the party and political work, in which paying more attention to reforming and improving the quality of political education, cultivating the ideal, building the stable spirit and high political determination, provoking the pride in the traditions of the unit so that each cadre and soldier could uphold their responsibility, impulse the revolutionary actions and spread the qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” to all fields and assigned tasks.

On considering the construction of the Party as the key factor deciding the successful accomplishment of all tasks, the Regiment has attentively improved the leading ability and combat strength of the party committees and cells together with building the strong staff of cadres with the focus on maintaining the leading rules; adding and completing the regulations of working and leading in all aspects which are suitable with the functions and duties of each party cell and committee; attentively reforming the contents and process of issuing leading resolutions in the way of briefness, compactness, with focused points and practicality; leading the repairs of weaknesses of the units; maintaining the discipline and order of activities, raising the spirit of criticism and self-criticism; well organising the sessions of “self-reflection and self-correction”, preventing the expressions of difficulty hesitations, fear of shortcomings, irresponsibility, lack of motivation, etc. Together, the Regimennt’s party committee and command have focused on building sufficient cadres who are qualified, appropriate and on a par with the tasks; training their political spirit, morality, lifestyle, capability and scientific, detailed and effective working methods and habits; heightening the responsibility, spirit of mastery and being ready to overcome difficulties and challenges. In any conditions and situations, the cadres need to be closely connected, sharing joys and sorrows with soldiers; well solved the relationships between the superiors and inferiors, cadres and soldiers, leaders and commanders to create the high solidarity and unity in the units, at the same time, bring into play the qualities of pioneering, exemplary, active, proactive, creative, daring to think, work and take responsibility of the party committees’ members and leading cadres; prevent the expressions of subjectivity, simplification, difficulty and hardship hesitations, half-way working and irresponsibility in doing the assigned tasks.

Secondly, improving the training quality and combat readiness to a new level. Being an unit which was established due to the requirements of the battlefields and connected with the combat operations, training is always of vital importance. In order to deserve the “Iron Regiment” and “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era, the Regiment has attentively briefed its cadres and soldiers to make them fully aware of the tasks, determined to struggle against the thoughts of difficulty and hardship hesitations, lowering the aims and demands in training soldiers; implemented the breakthrough of “Reforming comprehensively, synchronously with key points and focuses; taking the reform of awareness, mechanism of leadership and management, contents, programmes, methods and training support as the centre, the improvement of quality in training cadres as the key”; actively reformed the training management towards the “regular, united, synchronous, effective and non-overlapped” way; regularly made partial and total summaries, learnt from experience, made solutions for improving the training quality. On grasping the “basic, practical and solid” motto, the Regiment has focused on synchronous and specialised training, taken practice as the core, connected with spreading the combat experiences, glorious traditions of the Military, Division and Regiment; combined the fundamental training with task training; attentively improved the night training, mobile training, scenario-based training and soldier’s physical health, especially the foot marching over any kinds of terrains, conditions and weather; enhanced the reform in examining and evaluating the results, making them practical, close to the plans, taken these training results to evaluate the quality, competence and the level of task accomplishment for the party committees and commands at all levels.

Together, the Regiment has continued to grasp and seriously implement the orders and directions from the Ministry of National Defence, Military Region and Division on the combat readiness; built the systems of combat documents, strictly maintained the regulation of combat readiness duty, ensured 100% of staff, weapons and equipment, been always ready to do the tasks as orders without any passiveness and unexpectedness; enhanced the training and practice of the changes of combat readiness states, of which, standardised the order of contents and working methods of commanders of offices and units in order to shorten the steps; focused on regularly training and practicing plans for on-duty officers, commanders of offices and units, synchronously training for other objects and supporting units; organised the all-level exercises, attended the exercises in the superiors’ formations, well accomplished the tasks and ensured the absolute safety.

Political commissar of the regiment encourages troops

Thirdly, improving the regularity building, discipline observance and safety in all activities of the Regiment. The Regiment has continued to grasp and seriously implement the directions, resolutions and rules from the superiors on regularity building, discipline observance and safety ensurance in training, exercises and working; attentively educated cadres and soldiers about self-discipline; strictly maintained the discipline, regularity regulations, soldiers’ behaviour, the whole unit acting under orders to create the high agreement in the unit. The Regiment has required all cadres to set good examples for soldiers, offices for units and be exemplary in their words and actions. All-level party committees and commands have strictly maintained their management and command over soldiers, weapons and equipment; enhanced the management as decentralised; seriously implemented resolutions, directions and regulations from the superiors on ensuring the safety in training, managing, unit building and traffic; proactively prevented and timely solved any discipline violations and unsafety in task performance.

Fourthly, strengthening the public relations, actively joining the construction of the new-style rural areas in the Regiment's area of responsibility . On being born from the people, cared and loved by them in any situations, all cadres and soldiers of the Regiment have brought a great sentiment to the people, whole-heartedly served the people and fought for the people. “Learning one thing from the people and doing one deed for the people each day” is always born in each cadres and soldier’s mind, and the action motto for the whole Regiment. Bringing into play this tradition, the Regiment has thoroughly grasped the view on reforming the public relations by the Party, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, Resolution No. 25-NQ/TW, dated 3^rd June 2013 by the Party Central Committee (11^th tenure) on “Strengthening the Party’s leadership on the public relations in the new situation” and other documents from the superiors on this issue. The Regiment has also proactively coordinated with the local party committees and governments in the located and assigned areas in order to hold the situations, do the public relations while field marching with the focus on well executing the plans of “joining hands to build the new-style rural areas”, “sustainably alleviating the poor households”, actively propagandise and encourage the people to well follow the Party’s guidelines and policies, and the  State’s laws. In the process of implementation, the party committees and commnders of offices and units have flecxibly applied suitable contents and forms of the public relations with the localities and their capability; brought into play the advising roles of the political offices and cadres and public relations officers in all units; proactively and actively developed the socio-economy, maintained the political security, social order and safety in the assigned localities in order to create the trust between the party committees and local governments, strengthen the unity between the people and the military; enriched the tradition of “The superiors believing, the friends trusting, the people loving. Surely arriving once departing, and winning once deploying” of the Heroic Ba Gia Regiment.

Lieutenant Colonel LE QUANG HIEP, Political Commissar of  Ba Gia Regiment