Being fully aware of its assigned tasks, Brigade 242 (hereinafter referred to as Brigade) of Military Region 3 has been synchronously adopting various measures to raise its synergy and combat power, thereby contributing to firmly protecting national sovereignty over seas and islands in the Northeast.

The Brigade is tasked with providing training for troops and maintaining combat readiness for the defence of the Fatherland’s strategic seas and islands as well as taking part in natural disaster prevention and control, search and rescue, and other contingency missions. Due to the particularities of its tasks, most of its affiliates are garrisoned on offshore islands, thus facing many difficulties in their mental and material life. Meanwhile, the Brigade’s area of responsibility is large, more demanding requirements of protecting seas and islands have been imposed on the Brigade, and there have been weaknesses in logistics work. Against that backdrop, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have focused on drastically, synchronously implementing measures to raise the synergy and combat power as an incentive for the successful fulfilment of all assigned tasks.

First of all, further educating cadres and soldiers on political zeal and determination to undertake and fulfil all assigned tasks. This is a fundamental measure to improve the synergy and combat power of a unit. To that end, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have frequently rendered troops fully aware of the Party’s military and defence viewpoints and guidelines as well as regulations on combat readiness released by Military Region 3 and the Brigade. At the same time, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have directed its subordinate offices and units to regularly provide troops with official information about the situation on global and regional scales, particularly the new developments at sea and on islands under their management. Doing so has helped raise troops’ awareness of partners of cooperation, objects of struggle, and individual and collective tasks as well as increase troops’ vigilance to deal with incidents in accordance with the Military Region’s direction. The Brigade has also directed its offices and units to renew and make forms, contents, and methods of education brief, easy to remember, and easy to understand, while the responsibility to set good examples by cadres has been heightened to educate troops. Notably, under the Project on “renewing political education within military units in the new period”, the Brigade has actively designed special topics relevant to its tasks, further applied information technology to political education, and combined basic political education with legal education and other forms of education. Besides, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have directed all-level party committees and commands to regularly grasp and handle ideological issues amongst cadres and soldiers, especially those who are stationed on remote islands and in duty stations. The Brigade has strictly maintained Grass-Roots Level Democracy Regulations, opportunely discovered and resolved arising problems, thereby avoiding falling into passivity, “self-evolution”, and “self-transformation”, maintaining the Party’s ideological foundation, political stability, and unity within itself.

Leader of Military Region 3 checks combat readiness of the brigade

In addition to political and ideological education, the Brigade has focused its leadership and direction on raising the quality of training, exercises, and combat readiness as a breakthrough. Grasping the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 1659-NQ/QUTW, dated December 20^th, 2022 on raising the quality of training work in the period of 2023-2030 and beyond and the Military Region Commander’s Order on military and defence work, the Brigade has renewed contents, organisation, and methods of training and exercises relevant to the developments of the situation and its tasks. At the same time, it has directed all-level party committees and commands to better their management and operation of training work. Adhering to the motto of “basics, practicality, solidity”, the Brigade has directed its affiliates to organise basic training courses on mastering armament, particularly the new-generation one, focus on combat plan-based, areas-based, tactics-centred training, consider tactical training as the basis, put the training of cadres at the forefront of training work, and increase night-time training and exercises in harsh weather conditions. All-level commands and offices have been asked to concentrate on clarifying enemies’ combat plots and artifices, better themselves in grasping, studying, assessing, and anticipating incidents, particularly within strategic seas, and improve their staff work for combat, training, and exercises. On a daily basis, the Brigade has actively recommended the Military Region Party Committee to rotate positions from near to far islands amongst cadres so that they could have comprehensive competence in dealing with down-to-earth situations. As for detachment-level units, emphasis has been placed on organising comprehensive, focalised training courses relevant to each force’s tasks, improving their capabilities in preventing and striking back enemies’ attacks using hi-tech weapons, training troops in camouflage and manoeuvre to avoid enemies’ firepower, making preparations for combat, conducting combat drills, and ensuring troops would be expert in both independent and joint operations.

To  raise the quality of training, apart from preparations, the Brigade has advocated “training cadres first, soldiers later” and promoting the role model-setting responsibility of its cadres. It has stringently maintained regulations on training cadres, particularly new graduates and newly-appointed cadres on a monthly and weekly basis and prior to each training season at all levels. It has frequently assessed and classified cadres to work towards methods of cultivation and training, strictly conformed with training-related principles and links, closely inspected lesson plans, and organised teaching rehearsals and competitions for cadres and affiliated units. It has encouraged self-study and self-improvement in military knowledge and skills amongst its cadres. Moreover, it has launched a lot of emulation movements relating to training work and aligned this work with the fulfilment of goals and targets of the Campaign titled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”.

“Lest the Fatherland fall into any passive situation”, the Brigade has strictly maintained combat readiness regulations and organised duty teams at all levels with proper strength, sufficient weapons and equipment, and smooth, secret communications. It has cooperated with other forces stationed in the area to build a firm defensive posture. Annually, it inspects, supplements, and perfects combat documents at all levels in accordance with situational developments and the Military Region’s operational intent, while consolidating shelters, trenches, battlefields, and roads and practising combat projects to defend seas and islands. It should be noted that in response to the recent developments in the defence of national sovereignty over seas and islands, under the Military Region’s direction, the Brigade has proactively coordinated with Quang Ninh Provincial Military Command, Naval Zone 1, Coast Guard Zone 1, the 363^rd Air Defence Division , and other military units stationed in the area to review, supplement, and complete plans to fight enemies’ amphibious and airborne landing, manage natural disasters, and conduct search and rescue at sea and on islands.

In addition to those above-mentioned measures, the Brigade has focused its leadership on improving military standard order building, discipline management, and logistics support. In its stationed areas, the Brigade’s affiliates have been confronted with harsh weather conditions, long heat waves, heavy rains, storms, a lack of fresh water, and high prices of goods, thus negatively impacting on their troops’ ideology, sentiment, and health. Against that backdrop, grasping and realising documents by the Ministry of National Defence and the Military Region on military standard order building and discipline management, the Brigade has directed its offices and units to adhere to Directive 79 of the Minister of National Defence on building “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong units and Plan on building units as role models in military standard order building and discipline management. It has directed its affiliates to organise discipline management teams. It has stringently maintained daily, weekly regimes, developed the model “four-good units, exemplary individuals”, and designed a manual for building units as role models in educating and managing the State’s law and the Military’s discipline with specific contents, targets, and regulations relevant to each force’s particularities and tasks as the basis for its affiliates’ grasp, dissemination, and implementation. In the process, it has attached importance to combining education with administrative penalty, while tightening inspection of discipline management. It has kept close contact with troops’ families and localities to report troops’ task performance on a monthly basis. At the same time, it has provided effective logistics support, training grounds, and technical support for vessels, vehicles, machines, and weapons, actively built standard, green, clean, scenic barracks, enhanced the implementation of the Campaign entitled “the Military Logistics Branch follows Uncle Ho’s teachings”, and improved cadres and soldiers’ mental and material life.

Thanks to its political resolve and scientific, synchronous measures, the Brigade has kept raising the quality of training and combat readiness, all-level tactical exercises have always been highly rated, its yearly command – office exercises have always been highly appreciated by the Military Region, and it has always been a leading unit in contests held by the Military Region. In 2022, it was presented with the flag of “excellent unit in the Determination to Win Emulation Movement” and the flag of “good training unit” by Leader of the Ministry of National Defence.

Bringing into those good results, in the upcoming time, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command will continue grasping and seriously executing resolutions and directives by the Party, the Central Military Commission, and the Ministry of National Defence on military and defence work and Fatherland protection. Due attention will be paid to achieving a breakthrough in force organisation and combat training, holding training courses for commands, offices, and detachment-level cadres, stepping up the building of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong units, further raising the synergy and the quality of combat readiness, and training troops to opportunely, effectively deal with incidents as a solid foundation for successfully fulfilling all assigned tasks.

Col. PHAM TUAN ANH, Brigade Commander