Discipline is the strength of the Army. For the Air Defence - Air Force, it is even more demanding due to its characteristics, requirements, and tasks. Therefore, researching and proposing solutions to improve the quality of legal education to build a sense of law and discipline observance in performing tasks for non-commissioned officers and soldiers is an important and necessary content which should be further promoted.

Law dissemination and education play an important role in building political steadfastness, raising the sense of law and discipline observance and practical operation capacity of the military in general and non-commissioned officers and soldiers in particular. Recognising that role and importance, the Air Defence - Air Force Party Committee and High Command always identify the work of law dissemination and education for non-commissioned officers and soldiers as a focus in leadership and direction as performing well this task not only contributes to building the Service regular, elite, and modern but also ensures a high level of combat readiness to manage and firmly protect the Fatherland’s airspace in all situations. In order for the education to be effective, multiple solutions should be synchronously implemented. This article will mention some of the following main contents and solutions.

Firstly, the leadership and direction of the Party committees at all levels over the work of legal education for non-commissioned officers and soldiers should be strengthened. This is an important and decisive solution for improving the quality of the work in the Air Defence - Air Force. Therefore, the Party Committees at all levels, especially the Party cells, should develop resolutions to lead the work of legal education for non-commissioned officers and soldiers. The work may be the content of thematic resolutions or introduced in the regular leadership ones. Particularly, it is necessary to clearly define guidelines and leadership measures suitable to the reality of the units, have targets to strive for, and clearly assign responsibilities to each cadre and Party member in charge. After resolutions are issued, they must be fully communicated, specifically deployed, and strictly implemented. Party committees and cells need to regularly focus on renovating leadership methods and strengthening the inspection of commissioners assigned to be in charge of legal education at the units. At the same time, at each level, cadres in charge of agencies and units, especially political commissars, should well perform the work of legal education in combination with political and ideological education to orient agencies and units to implement seriously and effectively, create the unity of will and action between subjects and object of legal education, and contribute to preventing bad habits and cases of law and discipline violation at the units. To be effective, based on the contents identified in the resolutions, the commanders of agencies and units need to plan to combine legal propagation with political and ideological education to suit reality. The political commissars’ themes of political education should adhere to the provisions of the State’s laws, Army’s orders and rules, and Service’s regulations. Legal propagation and dissemination should be combined with activities, such as flag salutation, political reporting, youth forums, art performances, visits to museums or traditional houses, etc. Units should actively integrate legal education with the implementation of emulation movements to create synergy to improve the quality and efficiency of the work.

Secondly, the roles and responsibilities of presiding cadres and political commissars at all levels should be promoted. The presiding cadres and political commissars play an important role in improving the quality of legal education in the units. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to raise their awareness and sense of responsibility in legal education for non-commissioned officers and soldiers. The practice has shown that if presiding cadres and political commissars pay due attention to leading and directing, the work of law dissemination and education will be well implemented. Based on the superiors’ resolutions, directives, and instructions and those of their own, political agencies should develop plans for legal education and instruct to concretise and develop implementation plans. Commanders at all levels should actively discuss with political commissars to direct functional agencies to develop plans and organise legal education for non-commissioned officers and soldiers to ensure the time, programs, contents, and mobilisation of the maximum number of troops to participate in learning. The regimes of meeting and learning should be strictly maintained; meanwhile, legal education should be closely combined with other activities of the units, such as combat readiness training, specialised professional training, discipline training, regularity building, and construction of comprehensively strong units. At the same time, the commanders must also actively study, research, and improve their legal knowledge and qualifications to not only perform well the regulations on the responsibility of modeling in law and discipline observance but also directly participate in the process of legal education, promote democracy in legal education, and strengthen dialogue with non-commissioned officers and soldiers to grasp the situation, thoughts, and aspirations, and promptly solve all problems of non-commissioned officers and soldiers concerning legal education in the units.

Thirdly, legal education should be combined with ethical education. Currently, before each task, we often evaluate and comment on whether it is appropriate or inappropriate on both legal and ethical aspects. Moreover, the practice has shown that to manage, administer, and command the units, using only laws, regulations, disciplines, or orders will not be effective, but a close combination of ethics and law will work to support each other and promote the strengths of both methods in this work. Therefore, legal education combined with ethical education is an indispensable condition for forming the non-commissioned officers' and soldiers’ legal and ethical behaviours and limiting illegal acts. Accordingly, combining legal education with ethical education for soldiers of the Air Defence - Air Force needs to achieve the following goals: (1) Making non-commissioned officers and soldiers in the units properly aware of the relationship between law and ethics and lifestyle; consolidating and protecting reasonable and good concepts, views, ideas, and norms of traditional and progressive ethics; preventing and repelling acts of violating the laws of the State, the discipline of the Army, and regulations of the units; and serving as the basis and premise to build a contingent of non-commissioned officers and soldiers who are capable and qualified to fulfill tasks in all conditions and circumstances; (2) Continuing to attach importance to the management units and non-commissioned officers and soldiers through the Army's orders and regulations and specific rules, particularly ethical education and improvement for non-commissioned officers and soldiers; paying attention to preserving and promoting traditional ethical values ​​and good ethical concepts of the nation; continuing to research and propose new ethical norms in association with legal documents, orders, and charters so that laws, orders, and regulations become effective tools for ethical protection and development in each non-commissioned officer and soldier; and (3) Promoting the active and self-disciplined role of each soldier in learning, researching, and grasping the guidelines and guidelines of the Party, policies and laws of the State, regulations of the units, and the main political tasks of the Service in each period to be imbued with revolutionary ethics and that of “Uncle Ho's Soldiers” - “The elite Air Force - Air Defence Soldiers”; and constantly improving professional qualifications and social knowledge to meet the requirements of the tasks. To be effective, agencies and units should actively build a healthy military cultural environment as it directly creates positive psychology and a favourable environment for each soldier to voluntarily learn legal contents and knowledge, thereby, contributing to orienting awareness, thoughts, correct actions, and strict observance of State’s laws, the Army’s disciplines and the Service’s and units’ regulations.

Finally, legal education should be associated with discipline training. Air Defence - Air Force is invested by the Party, the State, and the Army to develop straight to modernity. It is both an honour and pride but also sets high requirements for cadres and soldiers of the Service. Therefore, legal education in association with discipline training for non-commissioned officers and soldiers becomes even more important to improve the level of awareness and understanding of laws, the Army’s disciplines, and units’ regulations and ensure soldiers’ capability of self-awareness, self-discipline, self-control, and self-determination of their thoughts and actions under the orders, regulations, and regimes prescribed by the Army and the Service in the all conditions and circumstances. It is the fundamental factor that creates political steadfastness, revolutionary ethics, and a sense of respect for laws. It is also a condition to ensure the units’ high concentration of will and action. Therefore, in legal education, instructors, reporters, and propagandists need to grasp the situation of thoughts, desires, and aspirations of the soldiers, especially recruits, to propose measures to leaders and commanders of units for timely handling problems, making legal content penetrate deeply into the contingent of non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Thereby, it will contribute to making each soldier self-regulate their awareness and behaviours and improve their sense of responsibility in daily life and work.

Along with that, it is advisable to strengthen the inspection and supervision of Party committees and commanders at all levels on the implementation of the State's laws, the Army's regulations and orders, and the units’ regulations as one of the reasons for the violations of laws and disciplines among non-commissioned officers and soldiers over the past time is the lack of inspection and supervision by leaders and commanders; meanwhile forecasting and grasping the thoughts of non-commissioned officers and soldiers is still limited, accompanied by untimely handling of thoughts, etc. Therefore, leaders and commanders at all levels need to focus on doing well the inspection and supervision of the observance of the working regime and the relationships of non-commissioned officers and soldiers inside and outside the units and exchange information between the units and local authorities to timely prevent manifestations of violations of the laws of the State, the disciplines of the Army, and the regulations of the units.

Adhering to the actual situation, leaders and commanders of units in the Air Defence - Air Force can research and flexibly apply the above contents and solutions accordingly in improving the quality of legal education for non-commissioned officers and soldiers, so that they voluntarily abide by the State’s laws and the Army’s disciplines to contribute to fulfilling all assigned tasks.

Senior Colonel VU NGOC HOANG, Vice Chairman of the Inspection Council of the Air Defence - Air Force’s Party Committee