Signal Brigade 23 is tasked with ensuring timely and safe communication for the High Command of Military Region 7 and its subordinate agencies and units in carrying out military-defence missions, as well as other unscheduled tasks. During the task implementation process, in addition to advantages, the Brigade has encountered numerous challenges, especially in force dispersal and negative impacts from society; meanwhile, most of the presiding cadres are still young and inexperienced in leadership, management, education, and training; soldiers' awareness is uneven, and the lives of the cadres and soldiers still experience many hardships, which significantly affect the compliance with laws and discipline. As a result, along with the measures to build an all-strong, “exemplary and typical” Unit, the Brigade attaches great importance to legal dissemination and education to create a seismic shift in training and self-discipline within the Unit.
First and foremost, the Brigade emphasises the role and responsibility of party committees and organisations at all levels in legal dissemination and education. For great effectiveness, the Brigade concentrates on thoroughly grasping the conclusions, directives, and resolutions of the Secretariat, the Military Region’s Party Committee, and the Brigade’s Party Committee on legal dissemination and education. This is conducted through conferences, competitions, training of cadres, etc. Therefore, the awareness of the position and role of legal dissemination and education within the party committees and organisations at all levels is heightened, thereby making a breakthrough in the building of regularity, management, and maintenance of discipline. On the foundation of the resolutions issued by the Brigade’s Party Committee, party committees and organisations at all levels accurately assess the current compliance with regularity and training of discipline to issue thematic leadership resolutions to implement legal dissemination and education with accurate and appropriate goals, targets, guidelines, solutions. Every month, party cells conduct after-action reviews to timely supplement and correct any shortcomings. The Political Department and the Coordination Council for Legal Dissemination and Education fulfil their advisory functions in designing and implementing plans, guidelines, and assistance to units and organisations. They also intensify inspections, urge, and propose timely measures for the disregard of this important work. As a result, the legal dissemination and education plan has been strictly implemented to ensure a sufficient amount of time, in-depth content, and creativity in methods; the combination of legal dissemination and education with the building of regularity and discipline training have achieved in-deep and sustainable effectiveness. The consciousness and full compliance with law and discipline among cadres and soldiers have been increasingly heightened. And no disciplinary violations in agencies and units have been found for 6 consecutive years, which contributes to absolute safety and the building of an all-strong, “exemplary and typical” Brigade.
As a matter of fact, the effectiveness of legal dissemination and education depends on multiple factors, especially competence and skills. Therefore, the Brigade consistently attaches importance to consolidating and improving the quality of reporters and propagandists. Accordingly, on the foundation of the evaluation of the quality of personnel engaged in legal propagation, dissemination, and education, the Political Department and the Coordination Council for Legal Dissemination and Education advise the Brigade’s Party Committee to select and arrange sufficient political cadres at each level with an appropriate structure without causing imbalance and impacting on the effectiveness of legal dissemination and education. To build a contingent with sufficient qualities, pedagogical competencies, and skills, the Brigade organises annual training and development for the reporters and propagandists; sends them to training courses held by the Military Region; performs the training of higher echelons to lower ones; encourages self-study spirit to enhance their knowledge, competencies to meet the task requirements. The training contents are focused on the methods of legal propagation, dissemination, and education to ensure that the knowledge transmission is not rigid and boring, but scientific, easy to understand, remember, and implement. Simultaneously, it is important to regularly update and provide legal documents, information, and materials for the reporters to study and grasp the fundamental contents of the laws, the current legal regulations, and the regulations of the Brigade regarding the building of regularity disciplinary maintenance, and safety assurance to lay a foundation for compiling teaching plans, lessons, and outlines with central focuses and high orientation. As a result, all of the reporters and propagandists in the Unit have sufficient qualifications and competencies to master the contents, promote creativity in their methods, and apply to practical situations to satisfy the requirements of legal dissemination and education for different targets. The annual legal awareness assessment result shows 100% of cadre meeting requirements, with 80% to 85% being rated as good or excellent.
To make a shift from awareness into self-compliance with the laws and discipline among cadres and soldiers, the Brigade advocates disseminating and educating across the board but with an emphasis and focus on legal matters. To make a breakthrough, the Political Department of the Brigade closely follow the instruction of the General Political Department and the Political Department of Military Region 7 to design comprehensive plans for propagating and educating the law. The focus is placed on improving legal awareness and knowledge; building self-consciousness of observing the State's laws, the Army’s discipline, etc. The subordinate units develop monthly plans and programmes in accordance with requirements and tasks with a focus on the directives and instructions of higher echelons on the building of regularity and full compliance with the law and discipline, the overall situation of the compliance in the entire Army, examples of good individuals and good deeds in the implementation of laws and discipline, etc. At the same time, it is crucial to orientate ideology and actions, heighten vigilance, and prevent social evils. Concerning in-depth specialised topics on law and discipline, the Brigade coordinates with the Court Martial and the Military Prosecution of the Military Region 7 to propagate and disseminate to enhance the effectiveness of education. As a result, cadres and soldiers have a fundamental understanding of the State's laws, military discipline; the causes to law and discipline violations in the entire Army so that they can be immunised against the negative impacts of social vices, ensure full compliance with the law and self-discipline, and maintain the essence and tradition of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers”.
For great effectiveness, the Brigade directs its agencies and units to flexibly apply appropriate forms and methods. Importance is attached to combining forms of dissemination and education with other forms and implementing the models of legal dissemination and education. Accordingly, cadres at all levels can keep abreast of the situation to apply appropriate and timely education and management methods. As for young and newly-graduated cadres and newly-enlisted soldiers, the Brigade organises forums and debates to equip them with legal knowledge and life skills to well address conflicts in daily life. As for the dispersed posts and stations, the Brigade implements telecommunication systems using the model of "High-tech Support for Political Education and Propagation". This approach has been providing knowledge to learners through vivid and captivating visual methods to facilitate learners’ proficiency in the contents and enhance the effectiveness of this work when combined with traditional methods.
Thoroughly grasping and implementing the directives and circulars of the Ministry of National Defence and Military Region 7 on the building of regularity and training of discipline, the Brigade strengthens the implementation of methods of stringently managing and maintaining discipline. For high effectiveness, the Brigade regularly trains its contingent of cadres in methods of managing soldiers and measures for preventing violations. At the same time, it is necessary to direct the agencies and units to work in accordance with duties and act in accordance with regulations; closely coordinate with families and local authorities to manage soldiers; assign cadres and party members to follow and assist those with manifestations of violating discipline and being incited by bad elements. Another approach implemented by the Brigade is the shift from “resolutely and strictly addressing disciplinary violations” to “keeping track of the situations of units and accurately anticipating ideological situations to promptly detect and prevent manifestation and risks leading to disciplinary and safety violations”. In addition, the close combination of training discipline and implementing Conclusion No. 01-KL/TW issued on 18 May 2021 by the Politburo (13th tenure) on “Continuing the studying and following of Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, ethics, and manners” and the Campaign of Promoting tradition, devoting talents, deserving “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” title in the new period to improve the effectiveness of this pivotal work. During the implementation process, cadres at all levels must serve as role model for subordinate cadres and soldiers to follow. Each officer and soldier must place great importance on the responsibility of "self-education" and "self-discipline." As a result, in recent years, all of the Brigade’s agencies and units have strictly observed discipline and ensured absolute safety in all respects to lay a foundation for bringing into play the spirit of unity, synergy, and combat power to accomplish all assigned tasks.
Senior Colonel VU MINH DUC, Commander of Signal Brigade 23