Narrator: Chen Jianhua, Editor: That year
How difficult is it for a person from a poor family to change his fate? No one seems to be able to say clearly, because in this resource-oriented society, you have nothing, and if you want to start from scratch, the road will definitely be full of thorns, but I think that as long as a person dares to think and dare to do, he will eventually be able to step out of a smooth path.
Looking back at my life experience, I think I'm qualified to say that.
In 74, I signed up for the army, and there was no problem with the physical examination and political examination, but I was squeezed out when I arrived at the fixed army, and in order to win this opportunity, I ran ten miles to catch up with the cadres who received the troops, and finally was able to join the army and rewrite my destiny.
I was born in a small village in the north, and since I was a child, I have been stubborn and untrustworthy. Or I have survived the hardships, as the so-called poverty is to think about change, and since I have been sensible, I have secretly made up my mind that one day I will let my family live a good life.
But to seek change, we need not only to strengthen our own bodies, but also to arm our minds with knowledge. But many people in the village said that "reading is useless", and it is better to go to study than to go to the team early to work and earn work.
Luckily, my parents took a long-term view and insisted on sending my siblings to school. Later, I asked them why our family was so poor at that time that we sent our brother and sister to school.
Mother smiled and said: Your father and I have suffered from being uneducated, because we can't read a few big characters and can't do other things, so we have been farmers for most of our lives, and we don't want you to repeat the mistakes of the past. After all, if a person doesn't know a few big words, what can he do in the future.
In fact, they were also anxious about the cost of my education, although they would not have to pay tuition, but the cost of books and food was also a lot of expenses for our family.
But they gritted their teeth and persisted in doing so, and in the end, it was only through the frugality of my parents, the help of relatives, and the school subsidy that I barely managed to finish middle school.
Although I finally returned to my hometown to work as a farmer, I finally took off the hat of "illiterate", which laid the foundation for my future development. Isn't the direction of life changing little by little?
In 1974, the news of conscription spread in the village, because the college entrance examination had not yet been restored, and the probability of recommending the opportunity to go to university was almost zero, and joining the army was undoubtedly a better way out.
Speaking of which, maybe the current younger generation still doesn't believe it, it will be in the countryside, even if your family is poor, if you become a soldier, marrying a daughter-in-law is still not a big problem. Before this, many people in our village joined the army just to marry their daughters-in-law.
Of course, the reason why I chose to join the army was to seek a life-changing opportunity and to make my family live a better life in the future.
My parents were also supportive of my wishes.
Subsequently, I signed up to join the army, but the road to joining the army was extremely tortuous.
Originally, I successfully applied for the name, and then passed the physical examination, political examination, and home visit was also very smooth, logically speaking, it was no problem to enlist in the army, but as a result, I waited for several days, but the enlistment notice was never received.
I was in a hurry, so I went to the Ministry of People's Armed Forces to inquire about the situation, but I was told that the young man who had been conscripted had gone to the county seat that afternoon, and I knew that I had been brushed off.
Hope was snuffed out in the cradle, and at that moment, I felt like the whole world was going to collapse.
I went home dejected and told my parents about it, and their words made me even more sad and angry.
It turned out that when I went to the Ministry of People's Armed Forces to inquire about the situation, the news of my conscription spread in the village.
There are a total of three places in our brigade, not to mention the other two, and one of the most incomprehensible is the brother-in-law of the brigade branch secretary.
He didn't go to school, in terms of culture, he can't compare to me, and I've seen him, and his physique is not as good as mine, I have helped the family since I was a child, and I inherited my father's height, which is relatively strong.
It stands to reason that I am more suitable to join the army than him, why was I brushed down in the end and he was chosen?
The truth is self-evident.
But what can you do in the face of such a situation? I locked myself in my room, lay on my bed, and looked at the peeling dirt on the wall, and my thoughts were full of thoughts......
I clearly remember that our two earthen houses were really hard to come by. In the mid-60s, when the family was very poor, our family of four would live in a relative's barn (my father was a clean family when the family separated).
At that time, I was very envious of others having a home where they could live and shelter from the wind and rain. "Pity the hearts of parents all over the world", as parents, this desire is actually stronger than ours.
Parents are the farmers of their own duty, with their faces facing the loess and their backs to the sky, carrying the mouths of the family on their shoulders, holding the lives of their children in their hands, often coming and going in the wind and rain, in order to give us a real home, it can be said that they have endured all the hardships.
Finally, at the end of the 60s, I finally saved a little hard-earned money, and with the help of my father and fellow villagers, I built two earthen houses to give our brothers and sisters a home.
Now, in the erosion of the years, the earthen walls are slowly peeling away. Thinking of this, I don't feel good in my heart, I have also grown up, I want to share the burden on my parents' shoulders, I want to change the status quo, but ......
Two lines of hot tears flowed down the corners of my eyes, and the more I thought about it, the more unwilling I became, and finally made a crazy move in my life, and it was precisely because of this move that I changed my life later.
I was determined to chase down the county to find a cadre to receive the soldiers, and to fight for another chance to change my life.
I was afraid that my parents would be worried, so I left a letter and rushed to the county seat alone. It was winter, the wind was cold, I wore a pair of tattered shoes, stepped on the snow with one foot deep and one foot shallow, hurried slowly, walked ten miles, and did not arrive at the county seat until it was dark.
Speaking of which, I was lucky that the cadres and recruits did not leave that day, they all gathered in the county auditorium, and they were ready to go the next day.
I thought it must be God's mercy, so I ran directly to the auditorium, and after many twists and turns, I finally found a few cadres who came to the county to receive troops (at that time, there were several cadres who received troops, each in charge of a commune).
But they were surprised to see me shivering in a pair of worn-out shoes. After learning about my situation, I was moved by my courage and determination, and I originally passed the military inspection, and one of the company commanders (surnamed Zhou) who received the soldiers finally made a decision: If such soldiers are not accepted, what will we recruit them?
And so, I joined the army as I wished.
Changed into a military uniform that didn't fit well, but it was enough to dispel the cold of that winter. I slept in the Chase shop that night, and the next day I got on the truck, came to the station, got into the stuffy tanker, and ran to the place of hope.
I enlisted in a certain artillery communications company in Shandong, and after three months of new training, I relied on my firm belief and determination to break through the cauldron and was diligently rated as a "pacesetter."
After leaving the company, I became a signal soldier, and although the life of the army at that time was not as good as it is now, it was very satisfying for me.
When I was a child, I could only eat a little pork every year until the Chinese New Year, especially when there were natural disasters in the past three years, it was even more difficult. With selected leaves, wild vegetables and half a scoop of soba noodles, they are all boiled in a pot to make a large pot of thin paste, which is the daily food of the family.
When I arrived in the army, it was a blessing for me, although the staple food is "two rice" with rice mixed with sorghum rice, but it is much better than when I was at home.
Moreover, in order to improve their lives, the company will also grow vegetables and raise pigs, and they can eat pork every New Year's holiday. With a monthly allowance of six yuan, I can save four or five yuan every time, save for a while, and send it home together.
This kind of life gives me hope.
Therefore, I cherish the opportunity to go to the army even more, train harder, work more seriously, and the army is a place where there is a reward for your efforts. In the next two years, I relied on my own hard work to join the party and became the leader of the communications class.
To put it mildly, after I left the company, I relied on my own hard work to make rapid progress, and soon became a well-rounded soldier in the squad, and since becoming the squad leader, I have become more strict with myself.
When I was the leader of the communications squad, it was also my third year of enlistment, and I also caught up with the all-military region's signal corps competition. At that time, I secretly held back my strength to lead the class to get a good score in the competition.
In order to do a good job in this competition, I and the whole class of soldiers have paid even more.
During the day, he conducted operational training with the fighters, led by example in everything, rushed to the forefront, and constantly summed up some experience in training. In my spare time, I didn't let go of it, and I nibbled on books on the communication major.
In more than two months, I lost seven or eight pounds.
But our efforts were not in vain, our class won the first place in the whole company competition, and then won the first place in the whole battalion and the whole regiment selection competition one after another. These are undoubtedly our honors as soldiers.
In fact, during this period, the skills of all the soldiers in our squad have been rapidly improved, and our squad has become a famous "sharp knife squad" in the whole regiment. I've also received several awards.
In the fourth year of enlistment, I was promoted to a platoon commander. The first one got a salary of 52 yuan, and the sense of accomplishment and joy can be imagined, and I shared my joy with my family for the first time.
Later, with my financial support and Zhang Luo, my family built 4 large tiled houses, which attracted the admiring eyes of the villagers.
Along the way, I never forgot my original intention, the conditions at home have been improved, and I have not lived up to my parents' expectations, and then worked in the military camp for more than ten years, during which I married a wife and had children, and formed a beautiful family.
In 85 years, I transferred to a local enterprise at the battalion level and became an enterprise cadre until I retired.
Nowadays, recalling these past events is not to show off anything, at this age, many things are more light-sighted, and I wish for health and safety.
The reason why I recall it, I want to express more is that we must firmly believe that life is beautiful and splendid because of hard work.
Maybe we can't decide our birth, maybe we will encounter a lot of obstacles in the struggle, or maybe fate has already determined the upper limit of your life, but so what, no matter how difficult it is, we must know that what really determines the lower limit of our life is your hard work and hard work!
(Note: The article is original, the headline is the first to be published, no porterage, and the pictures are selected from the Internet)