Thoroughly grasping the Party's line and viewpoints on protecting the Fatherland in the new period, besides promoting socio-economic development, Quan Hoa District always attaches importance to leading and directing the good implementation of defence and military work to contribute to building an increasingly strong all-people national defence and creating a favourable environment for rapid and sustainable socio-economic development.

Quan Hoa, a mountainous and border district, is located in the west of Thanh Hoa Province with an area of ​​more than 990 square kilometers and a population of more than 47,330 people. As the District is surrounded by Pu Hu National Forest, Ma River, National Highway 47, and National Highway 15A to Laos, it has an important position in terms of socio-economy, defence and security, and foreign affairs. Therefore, over the years, the District Party Committee and District People's Committee have thoroughly grasped, concretised the tasks of defence and military work and protecting the Fatherland through resolutions, directives, and plans with contents and solutions that are suitable to the local characteristics, potentials, and strengths, and brought into full play the synergy of the whole political system, armed forces, and people to seriously implement and obtain multiple positive results, including enhanced awareness of cadres, Party members, and people towards the task of building and protecting the Fatherland; gradually strengthened potentials and all-people defence posture in association with the people's security posture and “people’s heart-and-mind posture”; gradually consolidated and solidified district defence area; improved overall quality and combat strength of the District's armed forces; and maintained political security, social order and safety, sovereignty, and security of national borders. This is a very important basis and premise for the District to focus on fast and sustainable socio-economic development, improve the people's material and spiritual life, and build a wealthier and stronger district.

However, due to geographical and historical conditions and low starting points, at present, the District is still facing special difficulties with a high percentage of poor and nearly-poor households. It is also the area where the reactionary forces are concentrating to sabotage. Meanwhile, the developments of crimes, social evils, etc. are complicated. In that context, mastering and implementing nine key tasks and solutions and three breakthroughs specified in the 23rd District Party Congress Resolution on “Orientation and tasks to develop Quan Hoa District into an average district of the mountainous area of ​​Thanh Hoa Province by 2030”, the District Party Committee, authorities, and people have been upholding the spirit of solidarity, dynamism, and creativity and maximising all resources, potentials, strengths, and efforts to comprehensively and effectively implement all aspects of work, including defence and military task. From that practice, the District has drawn some experience lessons and solutions for implementing the task effectively.

A meeting of the District's military party committee

First of all, the District has focused on leading and directing agencies, departments, branches, and localities to thoroughly grasp the directives and resolutions of the Party and State on defence and military task, including the 8th Central Party Committee’s Resolution (the 11th Tenure) on “Strategies for protecting the Fatherland in the new situation”, the Conclusion No.64-KL/TW issued on October 30th, 2019 by the Politburo (the 12th Tenure) on promoting the implementation of Decision No.28-NQ/TW issued on September 22nd, 2008 by the Politburo (the 10th Tenure) on “Continuing to build the provinces and central-governed cities into solid defence areas in the new situation”, Decree No.21/2019/NĐ-CP issued on February 22nd, 2019 by the Government on defensive areas, and guiding documents and instructions of Military Region 4 and the Provincial Military Command. Then, it has reviewed and issued resolutions, directives, and plans to lead and direct the performance of defence and military work to be suitable to new characteristics and conditions. Particularly, importance has been attached to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of management, administration, and implementation organisation of the authorities at all levels through plans, targets, and measures; promoting the roles of military and public security forces in building, supplementing, and perfecting mechanisms and regulations on building and organising operations of the defence area; consolidating plans for moving the locality from peacetime to wartime; and maintaining the order of meetings of four forces (Military, Border Guard, Public Security, and Forest Protection) to regularly grasp the situation and promptly and effectively handle incidents. Besides, the District has accelerated the allocation and management of defence land at the rear and logistics-technical bases; actively mobilised resources to build defence works and working houses for the military commands of communes and townships under the approved scheme; and strictly managed natural caves of military value in the area.

To raise the awareness and sense of responsibility of cadres, Party members, and people for the defence and military task and protecting the Fatherland to make the “Party's will” blend with the “People’s hearts and minds”, the District has promoted innovation to improve the quality of education and fostering of defence and security knowledge for targeted learners and dissemination of defence knowledge to the entire population. To make the work more in-depth and practical, the District has concentrated on leading, directing, consolidating, perfecting, and improving the operational efficiency of the Defence and Security Education Councils at all levels; directing the District Military Command to assume the prime responsibility for coordinating with functional agencies in reviewing the objects, developing training plans, and sending cadres to participate in refresher courses on defence and security knowledge as prescribed, especially newly appointed cadres, village elders, village heads, people of prestige in the family clans, dignitaries, religious positions, or heads of households on the border line; strengthening the roles of the Centre for Communication and Culture, reporters, and propagandists in agencies, units, and localities to improve the quality of the National Defence Program on the mass media; promotimg propagation of the Party's guidelines and undertakings on the all-people defence building, National Defence Law, Military Service Law, Militia and Self-Defence Law, etc. and military and defence activities at traditional festivals, preliminary and summary meetings, political theory training and fostering courses for newly admitted Party members, etc. to orient thoughts and raise awareness and sense of responsibility for cadres, Party members, and people of all strata towards defence and military task and protecting the Fatherland to contribute to defeating the plots and tricks of “peaceful evolution” of hostile forces and maintaining political security and social order and safety in the area.

In addition, the District has paid attention to building strong armed forces and improving their combat power to make them absolutely loyal and trustworthy political and fighting forces of the Party Committees, authorities, and the people. Deeply grasping the Party's views on building the armed forces in the new situation, the District Party Committee and People's Committee have focused on leading and directing to build the District's armed forces elite, compact, strong, and capable with reasonable structure and composition. In particular, priorities have been given to forces performing tasks of maneuver, combat readiness, and building of a comprehensively strong, “exemplary and typical” contingent of military and public security cadres and agencies at all levels. Regarding the mobilised reserve force, it has been built under the motto of “being in near locations and compact areas to be high ready for deployment and combat”. Meanwhile, the militia and self-defence forces have been built towards “being strong and widespread” with an increasingly high quantity, structure, composition, and overall quality, especially political quality. Attention has also been paid to selecting cadres, sending them to training courses for the title of military commander of communes and towns of intermediate, college, or university level of grassroots military, and strictly implementing the process of appointing and employing cadres after training to ensure democracy and publicity.

To improve the overall quality and combat power of the armed forces, the District has directed the Military and Public Security agencies, units, and establishments to actively innovate training contents and methods; strengthen practical training and night training and combine combat training with training in skills in relation to disaster recovery and mitigation and search and rescue to be close to the local situation; strictly maintain the regime of combat readiness; and promptly adjust and supplement the system of combat documents, arrange and adjust forces, and organise training and drills closely and under regulations. To improve efficiency, the District has directed the Military and Public Security agencies to study and guide the organisation of defensive combat drills in clusters of communes and inter-communes; combine defensive combat drills with civil defence drills and practice mobilising large numbers of militia and self-defence forces in defence situations to improve coordination and synergies among localities and forces, particularly the coordination among the Military, Public Security, and Border Guard forces in advising and handling arising problems to prevent “hot spots” on rural and border security.

The selection and recruitment of citizens have been led, directed and strictly implemented by the District to ensure democracy, publicity, and lawfulness. Since 2016, the number of citizens recruited in the District has always reached 100% of the assigned target, including 76.8% of health classes 1 and 2. Meanwhile, the recruits’ education level has been improved with 61.3% of high school graduates and 38.7% of secondary school graduates. In 2022 alone, 6.3% of recruits had college or university degrees, and 100% of newly recruited soldiers are self-disciplined, active in training without any cases of desertion or violation of discipline, and highly appreciated by the units. To achieve that result, along with promoting propagation and education to raise awareness, consciousness, and sense of responsibility for all classes of people in the implementation of the Military Service Law, the District Party Committee and People's Committee have adhered to the decisions, directives, and instructions of the superior agencies to promptly issue documents to lead and direct the recruitment work; consolidated the military service councils at all levels; done well the work of registration and management of citizens of recruitment ages; and organised examination and recruitment strictly, under the regulations.

Along with the above solutions, the District has attached importance to the implementation of policies for soldiers when returning from the military service, such as creating conditions for lending capital, leasing land for production and business, job recommendation, labour export, etc.; directing the Party Committees and authorities of communes and townships to associate the recruitment of citizens with the creation of grassroots cadres, especially in upland communes and ethnic minority areas; strengthening the inspection, examination, supervision, and handling of violations in defence and security; and doing well the policy Army’s rear work to consolidate and strengthen the trust among the people of all strata in the Party committees and local authorities and build a firm “people’s heart-and-mind posture” in the border, to contribute to fulfilling the strategic task of building and protecting the Fatherland.

HA THI HUONG, Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Secretary of the District Party Committee