The Party Committee and commanders of the Rocket Artillery Brigade 204 determine that “to forge virtue and talents” following Ho Chi Minh’s thorough, specific and practical working style is an important solution for the Brigade to promote its traditions, build pure and strong Party Committee and comprehensive strong unit, and accomplish every single task.

Over the past 40 years (August 9^th, 1978 – August 9^th, 2018), generations of officers and soldiers of the Rocket Artillery Brigade 204 have constantly strived to overcome difficulties and challenges and been active in “forging virtue and talents” to build up the tradition read “Fast growing, strongly building, comprehensive progress, be firm step by step” and to accomplish every single task; therefore, the Brigade has been given many noble rewards from the State, the Ministry of National Defence and the Artillery High Command. One of the important factors contributing to the above achievements is that the Party Committee and commanders of the Brigade have policies and solutions to effectively implement Uncle Ho’s teachings: “our working and organizational methods must take these words as the rule of conduct: To come from the masses. To go further into the masses” and “Everything must be clearly investigated and thoroughly conducted”. This is Uncle Ho’s thorough, specific and practical working style which officers and soldiers of the Brigade have been actively studying and following. At the same time, it is also action motto for implementing the Directive No.5 – CT/TW by the Politburo (12^th tenure) on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and style within the whole unit.

At present, the Brigade is mainly tasked with training and combat readiness, and flexibly performing contingency missions assigned by higher echelons. In addition to advantages, the Brigade also encounters difficulties and challenges such as: the management, maintenance and use of large quantities of weapons and equipment of various generations and types, high training tempo, difficulties in the soldiers’ life, and complex impacts of the market economy. Meanwhile, the competence and capacity of officers are still limited, and their working style is still unthorough and biassed towards administrative command. Those things have impacted on the performance of tasks and the quality of the building of a pure and strong Party Committee and a comprehensive strong unit. In 2018, to implement the theme of “Responsibility, discipline, quality”, the Party Committee of the Brigade determines to continue well implementing the movement on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and style, with a focus placed on making soldiers imbued with and practise the Uncle Ho’s thorough, specific and practical working style.

The BM-21 battery in training

Grasping the directives, resolutions, plans and guidelines of higher echelons and adhering to the reality, the Party Committee of the Brigade promulgated the Plan 93A – KH/ĐU on "studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle within the Party Committee in 2016-2021 period" with specific contents, norms, methods, forms and time of completion. The Party committees at all levels include this work in monthly, quarterly and annual leadership resolutions, the working plans of commissars and commanders, and the action programs for implementation of resolutions of the Party congresses at all levels in tandem with the implementation of the 4^th Resolution of the Party Central Committee (12^th tenure) on the Party building and rectification, the campaign of “Promoting traditions, devoting talents, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers” and the Determine to Win emulation movement. Besides, 100% of cadres, party members and soldiers make the commitment to "follow" Ho Chi Minh’s working style with contents which are short, specific, easy to remember, understand, implement, and assess, and close to duties. During the implementation, the subordinate units well promote exemplary role of the party members, especially the ones who hold presiding and important positions, and the vanguard and creative role of the mass organizations. At the same time, they also resolutely fight to eliminate the manifestations of degradation in terms of political thought, moral quality and lifestyle as well as “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the units. The Party Committee and commanders of the Brigade assign Party secretaries and committee members to directly guide, instruct and inspect the implementation, thereby opportunely praising and multiplying advanced models and strictly rectifying units and individuals who do not perform well or those who pursue formalism. That method has created motivation to promote the “forging virtue and talents” movement, bringing about deep change in soldiers’ awareness and actions, and contributing to improving the overall quality of the Brigade.

In addition to implementing the project of “Renovating political education at the units”, the Brigade also actively renews the contents, methods and forms of propagation and education to enhance soldiers’ awareness of contents, significance and importance of studying and following the Uncle Ho’s working style. Units concentrate on educating soldiers to grasp and understand fundamental contents of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle, with a focus placed on thorough, specific and practical working style in accordance with tasks and functions of the units and individuals. They closely combine regular education with specialised education or visual propagation with oral propagation, promote “dramatization”, hold talks and knowledge contests as well as invite experts to tell soldiers vivid stories of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle. At the same time, they well promote the role of their own cultural institution system (library, Ho Chi Minh hall, internal radiobroadcasting system, panels, bulletin board), and of local and Army news agencies to propagandize and diffuse creative modes and methods, advanced models, examples of “good person, good deed” such as: “Soldiers’ Club”, “Young Officers’ Club”, “House of 100 VND”, “Youth Hairdresser’s”, “Allowance Saving”, “Making clean sprout”, “Raising saving pigs”, etc. In order to create a good military cultural environment for the soldiers to actively “forge virtue and talents”, the Party Committee and commanders of the Brigade strictly maintain the policy of internal political defence, the Democratic Regulations at grassroots level and the daily, weekly and monthly routines, especially the Party Day, the Political, Spiritual, Cultural Day, and the Day of Law. The coordination with local Party committees, authorities, functional agencies and socio-political organizations is intensified in order to develop a mechanism for collecting information and handling situation. The public relations work is well performed while the military-civilian solidarity is enhanced to create favorable environment for grasping situations and taking measures to guard against evildoers, and to prevent social evils from penetrating into the units.

In order to change the “forging virtue and talents” movement into soldiers’ “natural daily work”, the Party Committee and commanders of the Brigade take the building of thorough, specific and meticulous working style of the officers, especially the ones in charge at all levels, and the improvement of the quality of troop training and management as a breakthrough. The training of the Brigade is characterised by the large quantity of learning material and aids of various types, the high and specialised training requirements, and soldiers’ unequal competence, especially the new recruits. Each speciality has its own characteristics and requirements. The speciality of measurement and element calculation requires the knowledge of mathematics and logical thinking. The speciality of reconnaissance and shelling needs cleverness, agility and high tactical sense. The speciality of artillery operation and shell loading needs enduring health, fast and precise mobility. Thoroughly grasping the above-mentioned characteristics and requirements, the Party Committee and commanders of the Brigade has directed agencies and units to well make the training preparation (developing plans, preparing training materials, models and aids), thereby, making it thorough and close to the training reality. In training practice, the Brigade commanders require units to master the motto “basics, practicality, thorough grasp” with the importance attached to synchronous and specialized training in accordance with combat reality, situations and plans, organizational structure, materiel, functions, tasks, and operational areas. Training from simple to complex level is also required to be strictly obeyed. The training contents must be comprehensive, from military, political, logistics, technical, tactical knowledge and regulations to physical training and soliders’ stuff, manners and disciplinary observance in order to meet the requirements of the lasting fieldtrips under difficult and severe conditions or in hi-tech war.

Moreover, the Brigade requires the officers, especially the officers in charge at all levels, to perform the style of "Working in accordance with duty, acting in accordance with the regulations" and to actively "self-assess, self-correct" as well as to practise the thorough, specific, meticulous and practical working style. When doing anything, officers must firmly grasp the principles and responsibilities to make specific and clear decisions. They always need to be exemplary in words and actions, and to give detailed instructions to the soldiers to follow. In addition, the Brigade always attaches great importance to sending officers to attend training courses organized by the higher echelons and promoting the work of training officers right in the unit under the motto  that superior and experienced officers provide further training for inferior and unexperienced ones. It also creates favourable conditions for officers and encourages them to self-study and self-practice in order to improve their training capacity.

Through the above-mentioned approaches, up to now, Uncle Ho’s thorough, specific and practical working style has been clearly manifested among the contingent of officers, especially the commanding staff of the Rocket Artillery Brigade 204. The training and combat readiness work  is strictly carried out as planned by its units, ensuring absolute safety and good quality, contributing to improving overall quality, building pure and strong Party Committee, comprehensively strong Brigade, and accomplishing every single assigned task.

Sr. Col. Truong Van Tam, Political Commissar of the Brigade