Sweet and happy memories
- My experience of being "exceptionally" absorbed into the party seven months after joining the army
Author Yang Enzhang
Whenever "July 1" comes, sweet and happy memories can't help but appear in my heart.
Now, when I think of my experience of joining the army for 7 months 57 years ago and being "exceptionally" recruited into the party, I can't help but once again arouse my gratitude for the party's training and education, my nostalgia for the clean and upright army in those days, and my gratitude to those who spared no effort to teach me. The gratitude of the old leaders.
(The author and Wang Peilin, the squad leader and instructor when he joined the party. We reunited the year before last after 55 years of losing contact. Mr. Wang is 96 years old this year.)
(On the right is the old platoon leader and party introducer Huo Ruike)
(right) (Sun Jichang, the old squad leader and introducer to the party)
In mid-February 1965, I enlisted in the army and came to the 7th Company of the 156th Regiment in Huai'an County, Hebei Province (later reorganized into the 12th Company of the 583rd Regiment). After more than two months of recruit training, I set off to the outside of the Great Wall. Heitugou Village in Zhangbei County on the dam head performs national defense construction tasks.
The weather at the head of the dam outside the Great Wall was extremely cold that year, with temperatures often reaching more than 30 degrees below zero in severe winter.
When we arrived here in early April, we were still wearing cotton-padded clothes. We lived on earthen kangs in ordinary people’s outhouses and had to wear fur coats at night. The local saying goes, “There is a wind every year, blowing from spring to winter.” Rolling snow) blowing stones everywhere."
Talking about food, I can’t eat a meal of white flour steamed buns with 85 noodles for a few days. The rice is mostly brown rice. Basically, I can’t live without the “two rice” mixed with macaroni noodles, brown rice, millet . The vegetables are cabbage and roe. Bu and potatoes are the "three old things", which are very different from the food in the wheat-producing area of my hometown in southern Shanxi.
Besides, digging tunnels is painful and tiring, and you may encounter landslides and water leaks, which is very dangerous. I am mentally prepared to face these difficulties. I know very well that I come from a poor peasant family, and it was Chairman Mao and the Communist Party who made the poor become masters. I am determined to actively meet the challenges of difficult conditions and repay the Party's kindness with practical actions. Besides, having some hardships when you are young will be of great benefit to society in the future.
When the construction started, my sixth shift was responsible for digging and sifting sand for the whole group to pour into the tunnel. There is no fixed sand quarry, so you can only find it along several rivers by digging up the sand and gravel that have been deposited under the river bed for many years. Sometimes after walking more than ten miles and digging several sand and gravel pits more than one meter deep, I still can't find suitable sand. When the filling was busy, a large amount of sand was used. We had breakfast in advance every day, brought dry food for lunch, and did not stop working until dark, which lasted more than ten hours.
Although I come from a farming family and have done some farm work since I was a child, I became a private teacher after graduating from junior high school. I did not go through the long hours of heavy physical labor and was relatively thin. At first, because I didn’t master the skills of using a shovel and a pickaxe, I just tried my best. As a result, my hands were covered with blood blisters within a few days of working. When the old squad leader Sun Jichang found out, he asked me to do a lighter job like sifting sand. I refused without hesitation in person. I endured the pain and buried my head in digging the sand. After a few days, my hands were worn into many bloody calluses.
(The table above is copied from the archive)
At the beginning of August, I was fortunate enough to have my first unexpected surprise. When we were lining up for a roll call, the platoon leader Huo Ruike suddenly announced that the company had decided to make me the squad leader of Class 8. When I heard it, I was both surprised and frightened. Surprisingly, the 26 squad leaders and deputy squad leaders in the 13 squads of our company (including the cooking squad ) are all veterans who enlisted in the army from 1961 to 1963. The 13 deputy squad leaders have remained in their original positions, but I, who has just joined the army for more than 5 years, have been left untouched. Yue's new recruit Danzi directly became the squad leader, and no deputy squad leader was assigned to Class 8, which was really unexpected. What I was worried about was that there were 17 people in the 8th squadron company, all of whom were recruits of the same year as me, and two of them were my fellow villagers. I was worried that I would be embarrassed if I could not command soldiers of the same year and would not be able to complete the mission.
instructor Wang Peilin said to me: You have written the application form for joining the party, so you should bravely face the new test. With the encouragement of Instructor Wang and Platoon Leader Huo, I strengthened my determination to overcome the difficulties. The task of class
8 was to dig tunnels (commonly known as cave digging). At that time, there were no mechanical or semi-mechanical tools such as hammers and pneumatic drills. They all relied on a steel drill and an 18-pound sledgehammer. There are detonators and explosives, and each work team must complete at least 80 centimeters of progress every day. I had no experience in managing people at first, so I took the lead by hard work. The whole class was divided into two work groups, and each group worked for 8 hours. I often finished working on the previous class and then worked on the next class for two or three hours. Because the tunnels were damp and there was no boiled water at the construction site, I suffered from severe gastric ulcers and rheumatoid arthritis soon after. I just asked the hygienist for some painkillers and continued working as usual.
I often organize everyone to study political theory and carry out mutual help activities. The whole class worked hard together, and every working class could successfully or overfulfill the tasks. The company was named as an advanced class in learning and applying theory and a model class in excavation. I was also rated as an activist in learning and applying revolutionary theory by the company, and I attended the Learning experience exchange meeting between divisions and regiments.
(The above table is copied from the archive)
More than a month later, the biggest surprise in my life came to me. At the end of August, Platoon Leader Huo and Squad Leader Sun talked to me at the same time and agreed to introduce me to the party organization. This time it was even more unexpected. I just submitted my application to join the Party at the end of the recruit training in early April. I didn't expect that my wish would come true so soon.
What makes me even more emotional is that I have no family relationship with the company cadres and superior leaders, and I have never given them a penny, yet they showed such great love to me. To be honest, I had no money to give away at that time. Because my family was poor, I only had 20 yuan on me when I joined the army. After joining the army, I saved some money from my 6 yuan monthly allowance to support my family. Moreover, at that time, the control of joining the party was relatively strict, and there were only four or five party members among the company's squad leaders and deputy squad leaders. My old squad leader and my old deputy squad leader are comrades who joined the army in the same place and in the same year. They have a very close relationship. However, the old squad leader did not introduce the old deputy squad leader who joined the army in 1961 to join the party, but introduced me who joined the army 4 years later than the old deputy squad leader. Recruits who were not yet 20 years old joined the party.
Now, when I think back to these past events, I still feel a sudden admiration and admiration for the old leaders’ selfless and noble moral character. Then, I also think of the famous lines from ancient poems that can express my feelings of gratitude for my teachers: “The mountains look up, Jing Xingzhi. Although I can't come, I still yearn for it. "
The two unexpected surprises that happened to me in more than half a year made me personally influenced by the party's fine style and the pure atmosphere of the army, and I was inspired by the upright and selfless moral character of the old leaders. Influence, this left a deep imprint on my mind as a newcomer to the world, and quietly had a significant impact on my later life.
Since I was officially approved to join the party organization on September 29, 1965, during the 57 years in the party, whether as a recruit or a leading cadre of a division, I have always adhered to my original intention of joining the party and worked hard to fulfill my oath of joining the party and The obligations of party members stipulated in the Party Constitution include adhering to "not being ignorant of one's conscience and living up to the Party's spirit" and "being a person of character and serving as an official with official ethics", which has better maintained the political nature of Communist Party members. When
was a division cadre, he twice introduced his experience in strengthening character and moral cultivation at the former Beijing Military Region Conference. Even after retirement, he still remains in shape and does not fade. He has been rated as "Civilized Retirement Officer" and "Excellent Communist Party Member" by the Shanxi Provincial Department of Civil Affairs and the Provincial Department of Veterans Affairs.
Before July 1st this year, I was honored to be rated as an activist for reading party history by the Provincial Retirement Center for Retired Cadres, and was commended by the conference.
About the author: Yang Enzhang, a native of Hejin City, Shanxi Province, joined the army in February 1965, became the squad leader in August of that year, and joined the party in September. He once served as director of the Propaganda Department of the former 65th Group Army, director of the Political Department and political commissar of the 193rd Division, etc. When he was young, he was hired by many newspapers as a special reporter and special correspondent. He has written three books: "Official Morality and Functions", "Official Morality and Reason", and "Official Morality and Official Precepts". The first two books won awards, and the third one was published at his own expense.
