At this special report meeting on the root-seeking tour of "Youth Stationed in Northern Xinjiang, Loyalty and Sword Casting", historical photos, documentary videos, and vivid stories brought officers and men not only sensory impacts, but also "a long journey to the deeper depths of thought." Please pay attention to today's report from the "People's Liberation Army Daily" -
Inventory tour of the "Red Home Base"
■ Jiang Mingxin, special correspondent of the People's Liberation Army Daily, Zhang Shaobo
What do we know besides the name
No one expected that the "Glorious Traditions everyone talks" discussion activity, which was originally planned for one and a half hours, would "end" in less than half an hour.
"Everyone comes from different units, each with a unique and glorious tradition, so let everyone talk openly, and there is no end to a day." Before the start of the activity, Zhang Hui, an instructor of the information and communication brigade at a certain base, was full of confidence. His battalion was newly formed after the reform and adjustment, and its personnel came from more than 5 units of the formation regiment.
But the discussion, which should have been lively, ended awkwardly in silence. "Even Qiao Xue was on stage for less than 5 minutes." Instructor Zhang sighed.
Qiao Xue came from a communications regiment and served as the administrator of the regimental history museum before the reform. That day, she was the first to speak on stage, and the "well-known name" casually said a long list, but it did not take long to be dumb.
"I can 'memorize' the name of each pennant in the honor room, but when I open it up, I really don't know what to say again." She found that the honor room she had managed for two years had become the "most familiar and unfamiliar place."
Officers and men of the brigade went into the honor room to study and understand the history of the unit's red development. Photo by Wang Xizhi and Li Wei
"What else do we know besides names?" It's not just a matter of Qiao Xue alone.
The red tradition of the troops needs to be passed on. When asked about "how the honor came about" and "what needs to be passed on behind the honor," officers and men often can't say why.
A stone stirs up a thousand layers of waves. As soon as Zhang Hui "threw" the problems he encountered to the brigade's education preparation meeting, it aroused widespread resonance among educators .
"The red gene is contained in the history and glorious traditions of the development of the army. Officers and men, on the other hand, do not understand or are familiar with each other the history and glorious traditions of the development of the various units. The sixth battalion instructor said.
"It has been more than a year since the brigades were merged and formed, but most officers and men do not have much in mind about the 'red family base' of the current unit." Yang Li, head of the propaganda section, said with deep feeling.
Last month's questionnaire survey made Yang Li remember deeply -
What does the story of "Wind and Snow Old Master Ridge" teach you?
How much do you know about the history of the various units of our brigade?
……
Don't ask don't know, ask a frightened. Looking at the blank space on the questionnaire, Chief Yang panicked in his heart, "The questionnaire can be left blank, but the inheritance of the glorious traditions of the troops cannot have a 'blank'!" ”
Judging from the results of the investigation, the "fragmentation" of the understanding of the history of the newly formed units by the officers and men at the grass-roots level and the "superficialization" of the traditional cognition of the troops are the main problems.
In the end, the question of how to take stock of the red family base of each organizational unit and how to pass it on was put on the desk of the brigade party committee. The "group of people" analyzed and held that in the integration and formation of the troops, it is necessary not only to take a good inventory of personnel, equipment, materials, and property, but also to take good stock of the "red family base" and inherit the "spiritual assets."
To this end, the party committee of the brigade has decided to carry out a practice activity on the theme of a journey to find the roots, and to help officers and men intuitively, deeply, and comprehensively understand the spiritual map contained in this newly formed unit by visiting old sites and places, listening to traditional stories, and visiting revolutionary predecessors, so as to help officers and men intuitively, deeply, and comprehensively understand the spiritual map contained in this newly formed unit.
The brigade's "Youth in Northern Xinjiang , Loyalty to Cast a Sword " root-seeking tour theme practice activities. Photo by Wang Xizhi and Li Wei
Although the back of history is far away, the background of the spirit is becoming clearer and clearer
"The sky is clear, the wild is vast, and the wind blows grass and looks down at cattle and sheep." The scenery under the big green mountain in "The Song of Shule" is desirable. A communication station is located under the Green Mountain.
On the green-skinned train leading to Helingle, a "root-seeking" team quietly set off. On the way, the officers and soldiers longed for the vast scenery of their destination. Only Wei Bin, who was traveling with him, knew in his heart, "There is no wind and grass there, only a stubble silently sticking to the signal soldiers under the mountain." ”
Wei Bin's father was a veteran of a communications station. When she was a child, she liked to listen to "Daddy on the Phone" tell the story of the Mountain Signal Soldier. In the year of the college entrance examination, she applied for a military school and became a signal soldier after graduation.
When the train arrived at the station, a whistle pulled Wei Bin's thoughts back. After more than two hours of car transfer, the root-seeking team finally arrived at the foot of Daqing Mountain. Everyone found that Daqingshan was actually not "green" at all, and the mountains were bare and full of stones. After walking along the mountain road for more than half an hour, the root-seeking team found the communication station "hidden" in the middle of the mountainside.
At the gate of the camp, a row of white bodies of poplar trees stood tall between heaven and earth, and branches stretched upwards vigorously. Seeing this row of poplar trees, Wei Bin remembered what his father had said, that they were carried by their shoulders and transplanted from dozens of kilometers away to the camp gate. Planted and withered, withered and replanted, one by one the poplars took root in this desolate mountain.
Stepping into the camp, you will be greeted by a small courtyard made of gravel and a few rows of bungalows. Not far away, on the bare hillside, the four large characters of "Love frontier" made of stone are particularly conspicuous.
The flowers and trees on the mountain, bricks and tiles, all contain stories. Entering the honor room, black and white photos frozen in the depths of time have become touching stories of generations of officers and soldiers carrying coal for heating, carrying grain up the mountain, and pushing carts to build roads in the mouth of Liu Jianguo, an engineer in his 60s. Listening to the old engineer's affectionate narration, Wei Bin's "memory on the phone" was gradually awakened.
On the day she left the communication station, the old engineer said to her, "You are very similar to your father, you all have the strength of the poplar on the big green mountain!" Looking at the poplar in the wind, Wei Bin tapped his mobile phone and sent this WeChat message to his father: Although you missed my growth, you never missed my growth.
The poplar of this communication station, the old locust tree of that communication station, the willow of another communication station... Similar "spiritual totems" can always be found at the brigade's remote mountainous locations. At each place where the red tradition originated, the root-seeking representatives would collect the local soil and then sprinkle the soil under the large willow tree in front of the brigade building, which means "the same root and the same source, one heart and one force".
"Is it really necessary to go to great lengths to excavate these old traditions?" When he first embarked on the journey to find his roots, Jiang Yuchi, the youngest senior soldier on behalf of the group, muttered in his heart.
It wasn't until the root-seeking team walked into the company where the prototype of the "Wind and Snow Old Master Ridge" story was located, that Jiang Yuchi's idea began to change quietly.
"Liu Yunge! arrive! Wang Jiguang! arrive! The company was organizing a late roll call. When the names of the two heroes were called, the whole company replied "yes" in unison. That loud "to" made Jiang Yuchi feel shocked.
"This tradition has been passed down in the company for more than 20 years. As far as officers and men are concerned, every time they answer 'to' by name, it is a vivid educational lesson. Instructor Liu Ziyue told everyone.
What kind of strength inspires this group of young officers and soldiers to stick to their mission? Jiang Yuchi found the answer in the display cabinet of the company's honor room——
Wooden spoons, wooden basins, wooden barrels, wooden pillows... The "heirlooms" of the company lie quietly in the display case, maintaining the same appearance as they were decades ago. These officers and soldiers made their own daily necessities silently told a story of self-reliance and adherence to their mission.
"That unforgettable history" seems to be right in front of us. Coming to the martyr statue, Jiang Yuchi's tears could not help but slide down. In the "Root Diary", she wrote such a paragraph: The same age, the same mission, what reason do I have not to work hard?
Some people have said that reform means that we must have the courage to "change" and be good at keeping "unchanged." Although history is far away, the spiritual background of the predecessors is becoming clearer. From the white mountains and black waters to the grassland Gobi, and then to the land of Qilu, 109 root-seeking representatives, accumulating 11 days, traveled more than 11,300 kilometers, went deep into 49 company sites and red sites, and visited more than 20 older generation signal soldiers. The root-seeking team went all the way forward and rushed all the way, and the pace became more and more firm.
The brigade organizes "small classes on patrol lines" on the patrol line. Photo by Wang Xizhi and Li Wei
Spiritual light can travel through time and space, and the red lineage will surely emit new shoots
"To be a soldier is to be a special soldier!" The signal soldiers can't even touch the gun, either on duty in the machine room, or patrolling the line, which kind of hero is this? ”
Wang Pengshen, a new recruit, swore to his classmates on the day he left home: "I went to the army to become a 'soldier king', like Wu Jing in the movie "Wolf Warrior"!" ”
A few days after entering the camp gate, Wang Pengshen began to stir up emotions, shouting that he had become a "fake soldier." He also repeatedly told his comrades-in-arms in private that he wanted to go home.
In order to make the red tradition better reside in the hearts of officers and men, take root in the front line, and extend to every battle position, the brigade set up a "root-seeking representative propaganda group" to go down to the company and go on the line to exchange face-to-face with officers and men on the root-seeking experience.
On the day that the propaganda group came to the new corps, Wang Pengshen and more than 600 new comrades-in-arms sat down from the stage and listened to the deputies talk about what they saw and heard on the road to find their roots.
The portraits of the heroes of the times gradually took shape in the mind; the seeds of the spirit of the signal soldiers gradually took root in the heart. "After listening to the stories of the older generation of signal soldiers who insisted on the ordinary and achieved extraordinary things, I was ashamed of my thoughts!" The report meeting ended, Wang Pengshen said.
"Education is not indoctrination, but awakening, but also ignition." A report meeting opened a "door" connecting history and the future for Wang Pengshen. In the final examination of the new recruits' lower company, Wang Pengshen actually achieved excellent results and became a "little hero" in the eyes of his comrades-in-arms.
Intangible traditions must be passed on with the help of tangible carriers. On the one hand, the brigade sorted out more than 50,000 words of historical materials such as historical contexts, heroic figures, and classic battle examples; on the other hand, they also paid attention to the simultaneous preservation of history and followed up the major practice of recording the brigade's strong army and rejuvenating the army. Relying on the brigade strong army network, they set up a special topic of "Root-Seeking Journey", exhibited and evaluated documentary videos and experience articles of various units, and continued to carry out the activity of "Sunbathing My Root-Seeking Diary" to create an educational classroom that "never closes the door".
In view of the fact that the troops have many points and lines, they have also expanded the education platform to every point with the help of the "six small" position platform... In this brigade, red resources are strung together in a line to form a powerful spiritual matrix.
The red tradition is like a net, linking officers and soldiers of all eras in the history of the development of the unit and condensing them into a strong military force.
At nightfall, platoon leader Tian Yulu returned to the camp with the soldiers, ending a full day of line repairs. "At 5:30 in the morning, we set off. The station has more than 100 kilometers of lines located in the primeval forest. This makes it more difficult to renovate the line. This 'two-headed, invisible' life has been going on for nearly a month. After dinner, Tian Yulu did not rest. He and a few key cadres began to study the renovation plan for the next day.
The higher the degree of ideological recognition, the stronger the self-consciousness of practice.
At two o'clock in the morning, the professional training room of the teaching team was still brightly lit. Female soldier Xu Jiabing is conducting data configuration training. This year marks her 11th year in the army. Previously, she had won gold and silver in various competitions more than a dozen times, and twice won the third class merit. But this time, Xu Jiabing was "breathless"——
She did not sign up for the program control major she was best at, but wanted to participate in the comprehensive competition of 4 main battle professional integration, competing on the same stage with male soldiers, comparing high and low.
"Only by mastering multi-professional skills and becoming a compound talent can we live up to the old predecessors of the signal soldiers!" The training performance improved by 5 seconds compared with the last time, and Xu Jiabing's face showed a long-lost smile.
A kind of character, through time and space, has become a mirror for officers and soldiers in the new era; a spirit that has lasted for a long time has become the motto of officers and men in the new era.
Silently, the two large willow trees in the brigade camp area had branches straight into the clouds, and the canopy was particularly thick green.
Find stories in history that belong to the future
■ Zhou Xiaobo Zhang Shaobo, special correspondent of the People's Liberation Army Daily
30 seconds, put in the usual time, may only be in the blink of an eye.
But the 30 seconds on the stage that day were enough for Li Zhidong to read a hero.
In the snowstorm, Li Zhidong struggled to climb, his whole body crawling forward, one hand hovering in mid-air, the other hand tightly dragging his comrades behind him, until the squad leader found "him" in the snow that had frozen into an ice sculpture.
This scene, which is only 30 seconds, is unusually long for Li Zhidong. "Nervous, depressed, even a little scared..." The spotlight hit his face, and the tip of Li Zhidong's nose was sweating, but his hands and feet were cold.
"Is this the feeling of sacrifice?" He thought.
The squad leader hugged him, crying and shouting "his" name - "Liu Yunge".
For this name, Li Zhidong has always been no stranger. When he first arrived at the army, he heard a story: More than 20 years ago, deputy squad leader Liu Yunge and recruit Wang Jiguang continuously repaired communication lines for 19 hours in the cold of minus 40 degrees Celsius, and finally sacrificed their young lives.
The squad leader's tears dripped down Li Zhidong's cheeks, and that warm touch made him feel that he had "come alive."
Li Zhidong also cried. He didn't expect himself to cry, "As if I really became him!" ”
In fact, when he first received the task of playing a heroic martyr in a stage play, Li Zhidong's heart was bottomless: "I tried to retrieve the name 'Liu Yunge' in my mind, but what I felt was a strangeness that had never been felt before. ”
Only by walking into heroes can you understand heroes. In order to help everyone deeply understand the script, Yang Li, the planner of this report meeting and the chief of the propaganda section, led the officers and soldiers to re-enter the honor room and the company where the hero was alive to understand the hero and the stories behind him.
In the deep mountains and dense forests, the Laoye Ridge, which is 1457 meters above sea level, has seven or eight months of snow in a year. At that time, after each line patrol, the soldier's leggings and big-headed shoes were frozen together, and they could not take them off, and only by putting their feet into cool water and slowly melting the ice could they gently take off their shoes and socks. Many officers and men of the Laoye Ridge Group have been disabled for life due to frostbite...
With the gradual understanding of the heroes, everyone has a deeper understanding of this history, "not only to read a few lines, but to pass on the spirit of 'Wind and Snow Old Master Ridge' to every officer and soldier." ”
This process, in itself, is a self-education. Walking off the stage, Li Zhidong recalled the experience, "At the beginning, just those few lines, I either remembered wrong or omitted. But after I really understood Liu Yunge, the lines seemed to be engraved in my mind. ”
At this special report meeting on the root-seeking tour of "Youth Stationed in Northern Xinjiang, Loyalty and Sword Casting", historical photos, documentary videos, and vivid stories brought officers and men not only sensory impacts, but also "a long journey to the deeper depths of thought."
At the end of the report, the auditorium was lit up, there was silence, and most of the officers and men had red eyes. Yang Li said happily: "The reason why the report will be so 'heartfelt' is that it goes beyond the meaning of 'stage', with the red tradition of the troops as the main line, outlining the spiritual trajectory of the signal soldiers." ”
"There are stories in history that belong to the future, and if they are found, the faith is eternal; when it is passed down, the development is eternal." Liu Zhicun, political commissar of the brigade, said in his final concluding speech that the purpose of this special report meeting is to make the red memory vividly reproduced and so that the red tradition "will never end."
Inheritance is not to hold the embers, but to pass on the torch
■ Liu Zhicun
President Xi Jinping stressed that all the way forward, we must not forget the road we have traveled; no matter how far we go, no matter how glorious the future is, we cannot forget the past we have traveled, and we cannot forget why we started.
Where a tree has roots, it can grow, and where water has a source, it can run. After the adjustment of the army's organizational structure, many troops are facing the new situation of unit transfer and integration, especially some units, which have a wide distribution area and many points, and lack integrity, systematicness, and planning for the use of the red tradition.
History is eternal because of remembrance, and spirit is not extinguished because of inheritance. As a newly established unit, the spiritual traditions of each unit have their own characteristics, but they are of the same bloodline and have the same foundation. How to make the red heritage of each unit converge and integrate, and achieve sublimation? It is to make great efforts in collecting red traditions, integrating red resources, and continuing to write red family trees.
A writer once said: Life is not a short candle, but a torch that we hold temporarily, and we must burn it very brightly and give it to the next generation.
In the new era, inheriting the red tradition is not only an urgent need of reality, but also an inevitable requirement of history, and it is also the unshirkable responsibility of our generation of soldiers.
For officers and soldiers, traditions often carry a "sense of distance", as if they are only exemplary models and advanced stories in political education. It is not easy to break this "sense of distance". Carrying out the "Root-Seeking Journey" theme education practice activities is to let the red tradition break through the restrictions of the establishment, region and time, make it a direct, vivid and convincing learning material and education platform, and truly let the red gene infuse the soul, integrate into the blood, and take root in the soul.
Inheritance is not to hold the embers, but to pass on the torch. The vitality of the red tradition lies in excavating the connotation of the new era and serving reality. The red family tree should radiate the glory of history, and it should also stir up the waves of the times. Follow the spiritual coordinates one by one, discover the magnificent spiritual genealogy, find the nourishing soil, let the red tradition send out "new shoots", and open a brilliant and dazzling "flower of the times", in order to live up to history and the times.