The Division 9 under the Army Corps 4, the first main division of the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam, was founded in the War Zone Đ which was situated in the Southeast Vietnam. Promoting the glorious tradition of the Vietnam People’s Army, cadres and soldiers of the Division have surmounted numerous hardships and difficulties to achieve landslide exploits, build up the tradition of “being united, humble, brave, creative, and victorious,” and make great contributions to the national liberation and Homeland protection.

In recent years, the Division has concentrated on grasping and strictly executing the Corps Party Committee and Command’s motto of “one-focus,  three-regular, three-breakthrough, and four-together with soldiers” in order to create a huge positive change in its synergy and combat strength and meet the task requirements within the Corps’ combat formation.

A conference to issue leadership resolution by the Division’s Party Committee

First of all, the Division has focused on making itself politically strong. It has considered this as a matter of paramount importance and a solid foundation for enhancing the Division’s combat strength. To do so, the Division has attached importance to performing the work of political and ideological education, enhancing the effectiveness of the party and political work in missions, and well carrying out the work of ideological management and internal political protection. Executing the Project on “renewing political education at military units in the new period,” the Division has actively renewed the form and method of political education practically, effectively and combined basic education with traditional education and discipline management so as to improve its cadres and soldiers’ political zeal, vigilance, and combat morale, and render them fully aware of the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines on the military-defence missions and the Homeland protection in the new situation as well as the tasks of the Division and the Corps. At the same time, it has opportunely provided its troops with correct information on the situation, partners, opponents, the hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy, and their plots to “depoliticize” our Military in order to maintain the Party’s ideological foundation within its units. To make political education for its troops, particularly for non-commissioned officers and soldiers effective, the Division has attached great value to conducting visual propagation and heightening its cadres and party members’ responsibility to set examples for soldiers to follow. Besides, the Division has stepped up the Determined to Win Emulation Movement, the 12^th Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW, and the Campaign entitled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers,” while actively preventing and fighting against all signs of degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle as well as the manifestations of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation.”

The Party building has been seen as a key to making the Division politically strong. To that end, the Division has taken various measures for executing the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.4 on the Party building and rectification. Consideration has been given to enhancing the leadership capacity and combat strength of party committees and cells, particularly those at platoons and combat readiness and independent units, performing the work of party member management and training, conducting the work of inspection and supervision, and strictly maintaining the Party’s principles and disciplines. Moreover, the Division has directed its offices and units to well maintain the Regulations on Democracy at grass-roots level, provided sufficient policies for cadres and soldiers, and closely cooperated with localities in managing their cadres and party members in the residential areas, building strong political bases, and strengthening political security and social order and safety. As a result, the quality of party organizations and members has been increasingly raised while the role of key cadres has been heightened. Yearly, the 90% of the Division’s party organizations have been rated pure and strong while over 94% of its party members have successfully and excellently fulfilled their task. That outcome has been an incentive for the Division to fulfil its missions in any circumstance.

A live-firing tactical exercise

Training and combat readiness has been regarded as a central, routine political task and provided a solid foundation for raising the Division’s synergy and combat strength. Thus, while protecting the politico-spiritual foundation, the Division has focused on improving its combat training quality under the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 765-NQ/QUTW and the Corps Party Committee’s 278-NQ/ĐU on “raising the training quality in the period of 2013-2020 and beyond.” To that end, the Division has required its units to enhance leadership and direction over the training task and actively renewed the work of managing, operating, organizing training and exercises according to the Party’s new thought on the military missions and the requirements for the Homeland defence in the new situation. During the training process, the Division has always adhered to the motto of “basics, practicality, and thorough grasp,” attached significance to synchronous and specialized training, practical training, training marches, and night-time and anti-terrorism training, combined training with exercises, and aligned military training with political education and discipline management. At the same time, it has trained its troops to master weapons, technical equipment, and skills in independent combat, joint operation, and combat in defensive zones, making them ready to fight and win victory in the conditions of modern warfare.

Based on its hands-on experiences and the combat requirements of a mobile main unit, the Division has asked its affiliates to intensify physical training, long-distance loaded training march, and night-time manoeuvre on terrains of all types in order to improve their troops’ fitness and resilience. At the same time, its units have attached importance to training their troops to swim, ensuring that all second-year soldiers would know how to swim breaststroke and swim with military equipment as the basis for river-crossing training. Over the years, the Division has trained its troops to swim across the rivers of Saigon and Dong Nai with heavy weapons, such as 100mm mortars and 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine guns. In addition, the Division has organized exercises at all levels, with emphasis placed on holding tactical exercises at platoon, company, and battalion levels and live-firing field exercises. With its effort and resolve, the Division has always achieved good results in the training task while its live-firing tactical exercises have been absolutely safe. Many units within the Division have been given the titles of “Good Training Unit” and “Determined to Win Unit” by the Ministry of National Defence and the Corps’ Command respectively.

Fully aware that discipline is the Military’s strength, the Division has concentrated on military standard order building and discipline management as a target, measure, and important basis for improving its combat power. The Division has required its offices and units to raise their soldiers’ awareness and responsibility for observing the Military’s discipline and units’ regulations. At the same time, units have been asked to adopt measures for discipline management, strictly maintain the daily and weekly regulations on study and work, resolutely fought against, prevented, and stringently settled violations of military discipline and regulations on traffic, training, and combat readiness safety. To ensure self-aware and strict discipline, the Division has attached significance to implementing the Campaign entitled “building fine, healthy, diverse cultural environment within the Military.” Offices and units have promoted the role of mass organizations, particularly the Youth Union, in organizing cultural, artistic, sports, and recreational activities and cooperating with twinned units in holding forums, dialogues, and exchange programs. The Division has built spiritual and cultural models for its troops, such as “soldiers’ cultural park” and “soldiers’ collective birthday.” It has directed its troops’ activities towards healthy cultural life so as to repel social evils and reduce violations of discipline. The Division’s Party Committee and Command have required all-level cadres, particularly those at platoon and company levels to live, work, and share with soldiers so that they could grasp and manage their soldiers’ ideology, opportunely settle ideological issues, and cement a sense of unity between superiors and inferiors as well as between cadres and soldiers. By means of the above-mentioned measures, the Division has made impressive progress in the work of military standard order building and discipline management as the basis for its successful fulfillment of all tasks.

Additionally, the Division has well performed the logistics and technical work; therefore, its units have successfully fulfilled the training and combat readiness task and improved their soldiers’ life. The Division’s Logistics Sector has adopted various measures for raising the logistics quality, stepping up animal husbandry, and improving soldiers’ life. Up to now, the Division has been 100% self-sufficient in vegetables and fish and 80% self-sufficient in meat while the rate of healthy soldiers has always been over 99%. The all-level technical offices have focused on improving their staff members’ professional competence and skills and carefully maintained and preserved weapons and technical equipment, especially for the training and combat readiness mission. They have also effectively executed the Campaign entitled “managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment sustainably, safely, economically and traffic safety.” As a result, the Division’s weapons and technical equipment have always been in readiness for the situations and its tasks.

Promoting the tradition of a unit which has been given the title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces twice, the Division 9 will continue to further enhance its synergy and combat strength and make itself comprehensively strong to meet the requirements for a mobile main unit and contribute to defending the Homeland in the new situation.

Sr. Col. Le Van Huong, Commander of the Division