During the Dragon Boat Festival that year, I interviewed a retired military academy instructor at the training ground. His parting words are unforgettable for me.
He said that life is varied, clouds and clouds are an experience, storms are also an experience, good and bad are innumerable, but all will fade with the passage of time, and finally all we can remember is only one or several colors.
On the way back, I kept recalling this sentence in my heart. The old teacher has been teaching and educating people all his life, looking back on decades of struggle, what color can he think of?
In the future, when I relive the past, what color will life leave behind? The car sped away, and clumps of wormwood on both sides of the road quickly retreated. I suddenly felt that the verdant mountain wormwood was very suitable for my military journey.
After graduating from military school, I was assigned to the formation management company.
Stationed in the endless mountains, the mountains are full of wormwood. This unsightly and seemingly ordinary plant has been used in China for nearly 3,000 years.
There is a cloud in the "Book of Songs": "Pi Cai Aixi, not seen for a day, like three years old." During the Warring States Period, Qu Yuan's long poem "Lisao" mentioned: "Household service Ai Yiying wants to be embarrassed, and it is said that Yulan is not admirable." ”
And the "Mencius" of the same period also recorded: "Judah is sick for seven years, and he seeks Ai for three years." It can be seen that wormwood has been widely used in the lives of ordinary people since BC.
In traditional Chinese culture, the folk believe that wormwood is "produced in Shanyang and harvested in the Dragon Boat Festival", that is, the growth and picking of this grass are in the state of "yang", and it has the power of pure "yang".
In summer, the climate in the mountains is humid and hot, and mosquitoes breed, and wormwood is a good medicine for officers and soldiers to dispel dampness and prevent insects. The Dragon Boat Festival is coming, and in their spare time, everyone goes up the mountain in groups to pick wormwood, some of which are inserted in the lintel of the outpost, and some are dried into sachets and placed in the cabinet.
Sun-dried wormwood can be used to boil water to soak feet, which has the effect of dehumidifying, dissipating cold and warming the body. The hygienists of the company even crushed the dried mugwort leaves to make mosquito coils or moxa sticks.
The mosquito coil is a little fired, and the slightly spicy aroma spreads, and the Dragon Boat Festival has a unique taste; Moxa sticks are used for physiotherapy, and moxibustion therapy comes in handy for those who have headaches, brain fever, bruises, and sprains.
Wormwood, which has strong medical value, is used in the diet in addition to external use. On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, the cooking class cooked glutinous rice, eggs, lean meat and mugwort leaves together, and made mugwort boiled eggs, mugwort leaf chicken soup, mugwort leaf meatballs, mugwort leaf glutinous rice and other delicacies to share with comrades-in-arms.
Wormwood is tough and erect, its roots grow through the cracks in the rocks and deep into the ground, and its tenacious vitality is like a soldier holding on to the mountains, which makes people awe-inspiring.
Many soldiers entered the barracks with the dream of personally pressing the ignition button and watching the missiles fly into the sky.
But when the words fiery, passionate, and surging were swallowed up by the loneliness in the deep mountains, they did not get discouraged, but made a solemn oath that "I am in the position, please rest assured that the motherland and the people are here", and took root in the depths of those inconspicuous valleys, year after year, to maintain and hold the missile position.
On the corridor of the company commander, there are two sentences hanging: "Our identity is insignificant, and our cause is everlasting."
This is the portrayal of the array soldiers, who endure loneliness, stay away from the hustle and bustle, and sow youth and sweat in the deep mountains. When they were lonely and lonely, the soldiers shouted loudly to the mountains on the patrol road; When homesick, the warriors looked at the moon and hummed songs of their hometown; When they were depressed, the warriors were deep in the rock formations, and the hand-painted sun rose......
If someone asks, what is it that they will never forget. They can talk about painting, laying bricks, building sandbags, picking up stones, and wielding a shovel and pickaxe to cultivate grass, laying floor tiles, and camouflage one site after another......
Generations of officers and soldiers are like this ordinary wormwood, rooted in the mountains, drawing nutrients from the rock formations to grow lush branches and leaves, painting the most beautiful colors of their unapologetic youth.
Author: Huang Yang
Announcer: Guo Fengyi
Source: Rocket Soldier Daily