The President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Protection Command (hereinafter referred to as Command) is assigned with a special political mission that is to conserve and provide absolutely safe protection for the embalmed corpse of Uncle Ho; receive and guide compatriots and international guests to pay tribute to President Ho Chi Minh, commemorate heroic martyrs, and visit the K9 Vestige; and organise special political, cultural events to propagandise political, cultural significance of the Mausoleum Complex and Ba Dinh Square. To successfully perform this task requires the management, operation, and technical support to be always ahead and without mistakes. Meanwhile, most of the technical equipment in the Mausoleum is specific, unpopular, and constantly used, thus having been degraded after many years. The progress of maintenance, repair, and settlement of technical problems is under great pressure. The materials and spare parts are scarce. Some technical items are high-tech products made in small quantity by advanced countries, resulting in difficulties in finding replacement. On clearly perceiving these challenges, recently, apart from focusing on leading and directing the building of a comprehensively strong, exemplary, representative unit, Corps 969’s Party Committee and Commander of the Command have adopted many synchronous measures to increase quality of technical work.

Deputy Commander of Corps 969 directs the training work in 2022

First, enhanced leadership of technical support work. On grasping and realising the Decision No. 2341/QD-TTg, dated 22 December 2010, of the Prime Minister on approving the Project on “Long-term conserving, providing absolutely safe protection for the embalmed corpse of President Ho Chi Minh, and leveraging the political, cultural significance of the Mausoleum in the new period” and resolutions of the Central Military Commission (CMC) such as the Resolution No. 122-NQ/QUTW of 8 March 2012 on “Leading the long-term conservation, absolutely safe protection of the embalmed corpse of President Ho Chi Minh, and leverage of political, cultural significance of the Mausoleum in the new period” and the Resolution No. 382-NQ/DUQSTW on “Leading technical work in the new situation,” every year, Corps 969’s Party Committee lays down directions for leading technical work with concrete goals and methods. It requests departments and units to develop action programs for carrying out the resolutions; supplement and improve regulations and rules for implementation; compile training materials in accordance with their specific tasks, timely meeting requirements of technical work. Departments and units are instructed to develop plans for technical support according to phases and key missions. Priorities are given to provision of support for technical equipment in the Mausoleum, equipment having direct influence on parameters such as temperature, moisture, and environment, and medical devices. Propagation and education about position and importance of technical work are to be enhanced, regarding this as the deciding factor in the success of the unit’s political mission. In fact, when the technical staff members become skillful and experienced, their length of service is not much. Meanwhile there are few replacements due to lack of training institutions at home. The Command, therefore, concentrates on building a corps of technical cadres and employees with sufficient quantity, a proper structure, professional skills, sense of responsibility, and political steadfastness, considering this key measure to improve quality and effectiveness of technical work. Every year, on the basis of planning and mission requirements, the Command assigns tasks to technical cadres and employees, ensuring suitability to their competence, skills, attitude to work, health and family conditions; requests them to hold more than one office and proactively asks for more staff as supplements to people quitting their jobs. It is necessary to select cadres to send to academies and colleges both at home and abroad, most notably the young cadres and leading technical commanders belonging to specific majors; develop and well carry out technical training plans for newly appointed employees. The training contents focus on promoting ability to manage, operate, and maintain technical equipment, especially the newly upgraded systems such as the central air conditioning system, lighting system, and the system for monitoring and controlling technical parameters of the Mausoleum. The training method is carried out periodically, before unplanned missions, through mission execution, and by combining theoretical training with sharing of experience. Importance is attached to organising technical competition in connection with annual promotional examinations with a view to truly assessing training results, professional skills, and ability to handle emergencies. The Command has organised repair shops according to the new staffing table; selected and admitted hundreds of technical cadres and employees; sent 54 cadres to training institutions at home and abroad; collaborated with training institutions to provide further training for 77 people since 2008. Currently, the Command has three doctors and 56 graduates. Most of them keep their mind on their work and have high political responsibility.

Together with developing the human resource, the Command concentrates on improving quality of using and maintaining weapons and technical equipment. First of all, the Command instructs its technical departments at all levels to strengthen management, examination, and supervision of receiving, allocating, and using weapons and equipment for combat training, readiness, security assurance, and execution of regular tasks in accordance with regulations, ensuring absolute safety. Importance is attached to provision of technical support for specialised vehicles, machines, equipment, power units, measuring equipment in order to maintain safety factors and high reliability. To achieve targets, the Command devolves maintenance and repair power according to units’ missions and technical support capabilities; applies the ISO 9001:2015 quality management system and the evaluation process for advanced weapons and equipment; successfully carries out plan development and force building; provides supplementary training and materials; undertakes routine maintenance as provided by regulations; is ready to carry out unplanned maintenance when detecting output errors of machines during operation. It also proactively works with factories in the area to repair and troubleshoot breakdowns beyond its capacity; directs departments and divisions to regularly examine units’ maintenance progress to timely identify and correct errors, thus seeking to reform maintenance process and contents, especially for new equipment, contributing to increased effectiveness of equipment utilisation. In addition, the Command actively mobilises resources for constructing storehouses according to the road map for implementing the Project on adjusting the planning of technical storehouse system in the military for the 2010-2020 period; making in-depth investment in suitable equipment and technologies. It has carried out maintenance of over 46,500 weapon systems and equipment; rebuilt more than 1,500 square metres of repair shops; achieved an investment rate of 98 per cent in technology as required since 2008, which help to enhance quality of technical support.

Being a specialised unit and self-reliant in terms of technical support, over the past few years, the Commander has stepped up technical and scientific research and successfully put many research projects on technological solutions and application of new technologies into practice. Projects such as application of variable air volume (VAV) technology to the Mausoleum complex, application of rubber waterproofing membranes to preserve corpses, building of a centre for monitoring states of security and fire alarm systems, development of an automatic control system for the F6 freezer station, selection of algorithms to control and maintain parameters in main chambers of the Mausoleum, etc., have been applied and demonstrated their effectiveness. Additionally, the Command has actively produced materials and technical standards for training, research, and support; encouraged technical cadres and employees to bring into play initiatives and technical innovations, contributing to enhancement of labour productivity and device lifespan. It has compiled and put 24 materials to good use; completed and applied 14 technical and scientific projects, 130 technical initiatives and innovations, 10 useful solutions, etc., since 2008. Its database and support process have been increasingly improved, ensuring technical self-reliance.

On realising that technical management is always a premise of all activities, the Command concentrates on supplementing and perfecting technical operating procedures that are no longer appropriate; creating and promulgating new operating procedures; issuing regulations on the sequences and formalities of renewing and repairing technical equipment and structures; completing blueprints of the existing technical systems as well as those of the newly installed ones; creating new operating records of technical equipment and medical devices; strictly complying with regulations on taking stock of weapons and equipment, enabling command and control, management and implementation of technical work. Together with actively propagandising execution of the Campaign 50, in the 2015 – 2020 period, the Command managed, operated, and used the system of technical equipment in the Mausoleum and other relating constructions in a “good, durable, safe, economical” manner, successfully maintaining parameters of temperature, moisture, and environment to meet medical requirements; operated the information, security, safety, lighting systems well, contributing to reception of nearly 9 million visitors, 44 state leaders, 314 delegations at ministerial level or equivalent, over 1,600 representative delegates to achievement-reporting ceremonies, and thousands of vehicles coming in and out of the Mausoleum. More importantly, the activities have contributed to good preservation of the embalmed corpse of President Ho Chi Minh. No changes have been reported so far, as compared to the previous assessments. Therefore, the Command has been trusted and greatly appreciated by the Party, Government, and people nationwide.

On the basis of outcomes and experience, in the coming time, the President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Protection Command’s Party Committee and Command continue to bring into play the tradition of “Absolute loyalty, unity and coordination, self-reliance and resilience, proactive creativeness”; mobilise the overall power for ceaselessly enhancing quality of technical work; strive for building a modern unit in terms of organisation, staffing, and technical equipment by 2030 and completely mastering the mission of long preserving and providing absolutely safe protection for the embalmed corpse of President Ho.

Senior Colonel NGUYEN NGOC HUAN, Deputy Commander of the President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Protection Command