Tuyen Quang is a cradle of Vietnam revolution and the area connected with many crucial historical events of the Party and the nation. Bringing into play these glorious traditions, the Party committees, governments and people of all ethnic groups in Tuyen Quang have been trying to overcome difficulties, exploit potential and strength to enhance the development, create strong breakthroughs in all fields, striving to become a sustainably and comprehensively developed province in the Northern midland and mountainous areas, and contributing together with the country to firmly proceeding into a new era – the era of national rise. To achieve this goal, together with enhancing the socio-economic development, the Province has intensely implemented the military and defence tasks, focusing on calling citizens for military service (enlistment), one of the key tasks which has been intensely and seriously led and directed to gain active results, and bring about much useful and practical experience.

Leader of the Provincial Military Command encourages new recruits

As a mountainous province with large natural areas and unevenly distributed population including 22 ethnic groups living together, 53.7% of which are the ethnic minorities, which has caused many difficulties and challenges for the enlistment in Tuyen Quang, especially the propaganda and dissemination of the Law on Military Service; the registration and the management of sources, the military service health check, etc. To solve the above issues and to well implement the guideline of “Delivering sufficient and high quality troops, slowly but surely”, the Province has strengthened the leadership and direction of all-level party committees and governments, and mobilised the participation of the whole political system and the people in this important task. Annually, the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee have asked 100% districts and cities to build specific resolutions and issue documents to direct and guide the enlistment closely to the areas; inform widely and deeply to each party cell and village to be unanimously implemented. In the implementation process, all offices, organs and branches have correctly conducted their functions and tasks, avoided the overlapping and laying the blame on one another; intensely improved the activities of all-level councils for military service; enhanced the decentralisation and connected the responsibility of each council member to the assigned results. Especially in the grassroots levels, the Province has required the heads of all party committees and governments to be close to each citizen from the time they received the enlistment order to the time they joined the army, considering it as one the criteria to evaluate the annual task completion of cadres and localities.

Notably, in recent time, taking advantage of some disciplinary violations and accidents by several soldiers in their military service, hostile and reactionary forces have been making effort to distort and misrepresent the truth, negatively affecting the families and people at the age of enlistment, and causing difficulties to the military conscription. In this situation, the Province has directed the local areas to enhance the information, propaganda and education to improve the awareness and responsibility of all party committees, governments, unions and the entire people for this crucial issue. The propaganda and education contents have focused on the Military Service Law, guiding documents; citizens’ rights and duties to the Fatherland protection task; entitled policies for soldiers and their families when they are in the service and discharged; traditions of revolutionary areas, examples of good people and good work in implementing the Law, etc. Concurrently, the Province has directed all forces to proactively discover, struggle against and refute the toxic and distorted information in social networks. To improve the propaganda effectiveness, the Province has attentively brought into play the key role of all-level military offices, the Steering Board 35, the Task Force 47, the Information and Communications Department, etc., and mobilised the participation of all organs from the Provincial to grassroots levels to make diversified propaganda on the mass media and social network such as Zalo, Facebook, etc. To prepare for the new recruits to have enough knowledge and understanding about the military life, the Province has directed all localities to open classes of “life-skills”, focusing on skills of solving arising problems when doing their tasks; abilities of exchanging, doing public activities and passing experience from generations of ex-servicemen to new recruits, etc. Together, the Province has paid attention to encouraging and rewarding all citizens having good qualifications, being party members or children of cadres at all levels who are in the military service sources and voluntary to join the army, creating good effects in the community.

Like other localities, the number of young people who are ready to join the army in the Province has been frequently working far from home, which makes the registration and management more difficult; not to mention the enlistment though the sources are enough. In this situation, the Province has directed the function offices, districts and cities to regularly check, inspect and keep track of the number of citizens at the age of military service who are either present and or absent in order to have suitable managing solutions. Accordingly, together with intensively applying the IT and digital transformation, regularly updating information and strictly following the change of population on the Vietnam Electronic Identification application (VNEID), the all-level military organs have proactively coordinated with local cadres to know the number of absent citizens; coordinated with areas where the provincial citizens are temporarily residing to do the registration and management. For students learning in colleges who are deferred from enlistment, the Province has directed districts and cities to make a list, recheck or require them to present the confirmation from the schools, not to miss out anyone. Besides, to create the agreement and support from the people and avoid any negative incidents, the Province has required all localities to select and certify citizens in the “equal, democratic, objective, transparent” manner from the grassroots to councils for military service at all levels; when having results, the localities should publicly inform and stick up the lists of recruits and other citizens who are temporarily deferred or exempted from enlistment in the headquarters of the communal people’s committees.

Youths of Tuyen Quang eagerly join the Army

Together with managing and approving the qualities of politics, morality, literacy levels, etc., the Province has carefully directed the citizen’s health examination strictly, objectively and in the right process. Accordingly, the Province has directed the military organs to coordinate with the Health Department to organise training classes to improve the professional competence and the procedures and steps of health check for all members of military service health examination councils; increase the staff and modern machines for difficult areas, etc. In the implementation, all attending cadres and member of military service councils have directly checked and taken responsibility for the health results of each assigned area. Together, to create favourable conditions for citizens working far from home, the Province has directed districts and cities to quickly make health examination and give results in order that citizens could save their time and travelling cost or properly arrange their jobs; at the same time, make strict supervision and management of selected young citizens.

With nearly 70% citizens at the age of enlistment being ethnic minorities, most of whom being the breadwinners of their families, the Province has paid special attention to implementing policies on military families and social policies on servicemen’s families in order to mobilise and encourage the youth to feel secure and eager to join the army. For citizens meeting the standards of enlistment, the Province has directed departments, organs, unions and localities to give more support, and make material and spiritual encouragement with detailed activities. The Province has proactively coordinated and directed enterprises in the province to receive and arrange jobs for servicemen discharged from the military service; consult the labour export and create stable job opportunities for ex-servicemen, contributing to encourage and mobilise young citizens to join the army. Together, to create the sources of cadres for all localities, the ones in remote, mountainous and difficult areas in particular, the Province has especially checked and selected citizens who have due political and literacy levels to foster their Party familiarisation or admit them into the Party before their military service; coordinated with receiving units to create the sources of cadres for the localities afterwards. Since 2020, in the entire Province, there are 99 ex-servicemen who have been selected and promoted to be cadres working in all fields within the province, making important contribution to improving the quality of cadres in general, the military and defence cadres in the localities and grassroots levels in particular. Concurrently, the Province has paid attention to preparing and holding the enlistment ceremonies formally and seriously, which are really the “Enlistment Festivals” in each area.

With synchronous and effective solutions, the Province has completed 100% of enlistment targets with gradually higher quality, 100% newly-recruited soldiers have been self-aware and active in their training with no one deserting from the army or violating the discipline, which has been highly appreciated by all receiving units and the MR2’s Command.

From the reality of its enlistment work, the Province has drawn main experience as follows:

Firstly, strengthening the leadership and direction of the party committees and governments from the provincial to grassroots levels, bringing into play the consultant role of all-level military organs, military service councils and the participation of the entire political system in doing the enlistment work.

Secondly, frequently making renovation, improving the quality and effectiveness of propaganda, education and improvement of awareness and responsibility of all-level party committees, governments, unions and the entire people.

Thirdly, well conducting the registration, source management, selection and health check for recruits, assuring the publicity, democracy and objectivity, creating the agreement and support of the people.

Fourthly, well implementing the policies on the servicemen’s families to encourage and motivate the youth to voluntarily join the army and do their tasks enthusiastically.

Senior Colonel DANG VAN LONG, Member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Council for Military Service, Commander of the Provincial Military Command