**News Sample: After the Medal Comes Home**
■ Yang Yang
The bus turned into the garrison as dusk settled deep. Through the windshield, Instructor Xu of a certain company of a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Zhejiang General Corps—returning from a military skills competition—could make out two rows of figures standing in the shadows at the end of the road.
The bus stopped. Instructor Xu and Private First Class Li Xiaofeng stepped off one after the other. The duty officer's shout of "Warmly welcome our meritorious soldiers back to the ranks!" rang out loud, but the applause was sparse.
The next day, when Instructor Xu chatted with Private First Class Jiang Yuean, he asked: "What did you think of yesterday's welcome ceremony?" This young college-educated soldier was the type who worked without complaint but had something going on behind his eyes. He lowered his head and rubbed his hands together, saying quietly: "It wasn't easy for you to go out and compete, and even harder to win an award. But honestly, I didn't feel much. I didn't see and don't know how hard you fought." He paused. "I'm more worried about whether I'll pass my physical fitness assessment next week."
As he was leaving, Jiang Yuean hesitated, then turned back around: "It's really not that I don't respect you…"
The door closed. Instructor Xu sat in his chair and didn't move for a long time. He thought of a cold joke: someone eats a meal on your behalf, comes back and tells you it was delicious, but your stomach is still empty.
Invisible, intangible—a crack, real and solid, lay right there. More frightening than not placing in the competition was this: the award had been won, but hearts had not been rallied.
Two days later, a table appeared outside the company office. On it stood the medal, alongside a notebook and a pen. On the notebook's title page, someone had written: how the medal was earned is written inside. Read if you want, write if you want.
For the first two days, no one touched it. The wind blew the notebook open a few pages; passersby closed it again. On the fourth day, a single line finally appeared: "Xiaofeng's required knowledge and skills aren't as good as mine."
A week later, the notebook gradually came alive. Someone wrote: "Not easy—you worked hard!" Someone else wrote: "I shaved another minute off my armed cross-country. Nobody knows. I know." That last sentence was circled by someone in red pen, like a rising sun.
At evening roll call, Instructor Xu stepped one pace forward and said: "Every person's effort deserves to be seen." He paused, his gaze sweeping from one end of the formation to the other, as if taking in every face: "The notebook outside the company office isn't just for me and Li Xiaofeng—everyone can write down what they've done. The company's honor doesn't belong to a few people; it belongs to everyone. We need to see one another…"
Below the line with the red circle, someone later added a reply: Did you break 24 minutes?
Instructor Xu recognized the handwriting. He gently closed the notebook. Honor isn't finished the moment it's "brought back"—everything is only just beginning……
*Soldiers of a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Zhejiang General Corps proceed to the auditorium for an awards ceremony. Photo by Yao Zhixiang.*
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**Front-Line Investigation: Revelations of the "Spotlight Effect"**
*— Observations and Reflections on a Certain Detachment of the People's Armed Police Zhejiang General Corps Strengthening the Motivating Role of Honor*
■ Yang Yang Zhou Yiren Wang Da
**The spotlight of honor must illuminate not only the "frontrunners" but also the "pacers"**
During the rehearsal for the annual basic training assessment awards ceremony in the auditorium of a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Zhejiang General Corps, twelve soldiers from a certain company stood in a row in their service dress uniforms, the medals on their chests gleaming under the lights.
Company Instructor Zang's gaze moved past the straight-backed figures on the stage toward the back of the auditorium. There sat the rest of the company—soldiers whose names had not appeared on the commendation list. Mess Section Leader Liu Tao sat in the last row, right next to the door, hands placed properly on his knees, eyes directed toward the stage, but his gaze not landing on anyone in particular—suspended at the boundary between light and shadow.
Liu Tao had served sixteen years, fourteen of them as mess section leader. During this assessment period, he had led the mess section in lighting the stoves before dawn, delivering hot food to assessment personnel, with not a single repeated meal. Under the blazing sun, just like the comrades taking part in the assessments, his camouflage uniform soaked through and dried again.
Coming out of the auditorium, the company's soldiers naturally split into two groups—those who had received awards on stage walked in front, talking rapidly about something; those who had applauded from below walked behind, their steps a little sluggish.
Instructor Zang quickened his pace, fell in beside Liu Tao, and said: "Old Liu, you've worked hard." Liu Tao turned his head and smiled: "Instructor, it's nothing—we're all working for the company." Section Leader Liu appeared perfectly calm, but Instructor Zang felt a tightening in his chest.
Instructor Zang did not return to the dormitory. He turned and walked straight to the headquarters building. The door to the office of Director Lu of the detachment's Political Work Section was slightly ajar. Instructor Zang knocked and entered: "Director, on the day of the formal ceremony, I'd like to add a segment to bring the rest of the company's soldiers in."
"What about the other companies?" "The honor was earned by everyone together, so everyone should get to taste it. The spotlight can't only shine on the frontrunners—it has to reach the pacers too. Not just our company: when other companies win awards in the future, the same principle should apply."
Director Lu said nothing, rose, and paced back and forth in the room. After a long while, he said: "Your suggestion has merit. I'll go request instructions from the detachment leadership…"
On the day of the formal ceremony, the same auditorium, every seat filled. When the program concluded, Instructor Zang did not leave the stage. He stepped forward, took the microphone, and pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.
"Liu Tao." Instructor Zang read out the first name, his voice carrying through the speakers with a barely perceptible tremor. "Mess section leader. During the assessment period, he led the mess section in rising at 4 a.m. for five consecutive days to prepare hot food, ensuring soldiers were fed. Together with his section brothers, he carried sixty-jin insulated buckets back and forth, delivering cool tea sixteen times."
The auditorium suddenly went quiet. He continued reading, one name after another. He read the name of a sentry—during the assessment period, the guard squad had voluntarily taken on all sentry duties for the entire company. He read the name of the company clerk—the administrative squad had worked overtime making number placards and printing rosters…
Each time a comrade's name was called, a soldier on stage walked down, removed the medal from his own chest, and hung it around that comrade's neck. Three medals ended up hanging from Liu Tao's neck, heavy enough to pull his collar straight down. Below the stage, the applause lasted a long time.
Private Lu Chenxu, seated in the third-to-last row, stood up. Looking at the old soldier not far away—hung with three medals, grinning like a child—Lu Chenxu suddenly felt something stir in his chest, like a "seed" shifting beneath the soil……
Afterward, someone asked Instructor Zang: "Why did you do this?" Instructor Zang thought for a moment and said: "In the past we always emphasized 'different assignments in the revolutionary cause.' But reasoning alone isn't enough. Soldiers of the new era need not just to be 'assigned' but to be 'seen.' Only when a person understands 'why I matter' will they care about 'why we are excellent.'"
**The spotlight of honor is not a "momentary flash" but a "permanent light source"**
Instructor Wang of a certain company had pushed open the door of the honor room more times than he could count. That day, he stood before a wall full of medals for nearly half an hour. The next day's education class was themed "Old Traditions and New Honor"; he had run through the lesson plan in his head several times, yet the sentences always felt like they were wrapped in a layer of plastic film.
The honor room's lighting was warm yellow, like aged tea spilled across the floor. The door opened and Clerk Zhao Huanyu leaned in halfway: "I saw the light still on, so I came to check."
"Looking at this wall—what do you feel?" "Impressive. Admirable. These honors were fought for by our predecessors. I always feel there's a layer between them and me—I'm nowhere near reaching them."
You couldn't blame the soldiers. Stare upward long enough and your neck aches, your heart drifts. Instructor Wang understood: he needed a bridge—a bridge that could carry today's soldiers to the other side of honor. He needed to find a beam of light that could make honor a "permanent light source" rather than a "momentary flash." He dug out a yellowed copy of the Unit History Chronicle and turned through it page by page; his finger stopped on one page. A corner was stained with water that had spread and dried, but it was still legible: August 10, 2019. A powerful typhoon made landfall in Zhejiang. Our detachment responded to the order and rushed to the rescue through the night…
The next day in class, Instructor Wang brought no lesson plan—only that copy of the Unit History Chronicle. He turned to that page, spread it open before the soldiers, and said: "Comrades, this class won't lecture on grand principles. I'm going to read you a few diary entries."
The first diary entry came from a veteran who had personally taken part in that rescue operation: The water had already risen to the second floor. Several hundred people were trapped in one residential compound—the rubber boats couldn't get in, so we had to get in the water and push them through… After one woman got out safely, she leaned out from a second-floor window and called down to us: "Which unit are you from?" None of us answered. The squad leader said, hurry up and save people, get to the next place. Right up until the mission ended, that woman never knew who we were.
The study room was very quiet; many soldiers listened intently. Instructor Wang turned a few pages and read another passage. The diary writer was a soldier who had been in the service just one year—it was his first disaster-relief operation during that typhoon: My college classmates ask me what I'm getting out of being a soldier. I don't know how to answer. Today, I stood in waist-deep water and lifted a six- or seven-year-old girl onto a rubber boat. She said "thank you, uncle." I thought of when I was little and a flood hit my hometown—a group of people in camouflage uniforms came and rescued my whole family. What I'm getting out of this is probably that.
Instructor Wang closed the notebook and looked at the young faces before him: "Honor is not about getting your name on a wall, not about having someone remember your name—it's about being able to step up at the critical moment and fight to win. What you carry in your heart is what you will give everything for."
The ripple effects of that class were far greater than Instructor Wang had anticipated. The detachment continued exploring along this path and found one key entry point: returning to soldiers the "right to interpret (阐释权)" honor.
One company assigned the task of narrating the honor room to young soldiers, letting them tell the unit's traditions "in their own words." When Private Zheng Hao gave his narration, he used none of the standard formulations like "heroic and fearless" or "sacrificing one's life without hesitation." Instead, pointing to an old photograph on the wall, he said: "What our predecessors did in combat is harder than any online game I've ever played. The key difference is: in a game you can reload a save and start over. They couldn't."
**The spotlight of honor is not meant to create a "halo" but to kindle a "spark"**
Battalion Instructor Chen of a certain battalion in the detachment had a persistent worry: the battalion had been rated as an advanced unit in military training by the detachment for multiple consecutive years. Every year when new recruits joined their companies, their first stop was a visit to the honor room. This was tradition—and a source of confidence. But in last year's year-end assessment, the battalion's overall ranking slipped from first place.
Objectively speaking, fluctuations in training performance are entirely normal. But on the evening the news spread, a sergeant knocked on Instructor Chen's door and said: "Instructor, I feel I've let the battalion down." The young man's voice was very low, his eyes fixed on the tips of his own shoes. "Those medals in the honor room are hanging over my head, pressing down on me so hard I can't breathe."
Instructor Chen was silent for a long time. He realized a problem: for years the battalion had been talking about glorious traditions and brilliant combat history—necessary, of course—but perhaps it had only written "the first half of the essay."
He then convened a meeting of company-level cadres, with a single-sentence agenda: don't let honor become a burden on soldiers.
At the meeting, Company Commander Jiang of a certain company described a specific detail. The company had a squad leader with outstanding military skills who had won merit citations and awards in multiple competitions. But for a period, this squad leader began suffering from insomnia night after night; every time he stepped onto the training ground, he felt all eyes tracking him. After one tactical movement error, he faintly heard someone muttering behind him: "So that's all he's got." From then on, he became timid and hesitant, afraid to try more effective training methods, because new methods meant uncertainty—meant the possibility of failure.
When the story ended, the room fell completely silent; every cadre's brow was furrowed.
After the meeting, the battalion produced a plan. The core logic was simple: turn honor from a finish line into a starting line. Step one—"reset (清零)." Once a month, company cadres publicly "reset" squad and platoon honors, making it plainly clear to everyone: this page has been turned; next month's honor has to be earned anew. Step two—"after-action review (复盘)." After every major mission, the battalion established a dedicated "failure ledger (败绩清单)," encouraging everyone to surface failures and work through them together.
Several months later, the battalion participated in a detachment assessment and its overall ranking returned to the top. On the day of the awards ceremony, Instructor Chen said only one thing: "Shed the 'burden mentality (包袱心态)' that comes with a record of past achievements, and new honors can certainly be seized." In the formation, several soldiers smiled until the corners of their eyes turned red.
"A runner in a relay race can't keep staring at the baton in hand—you have to look at the road ahead." Instructor Chen felt this deeply. He acknowledged candidly that the provisions on "tolerance for mistakes and exemption from accountability (容错免责)" in the newly revised Discipline Regulations of the Chinese People's Liberation Army had genuinely given the grassroots the institutional confidence to dare to explore. "At bottom, regulations are the baseline. What truly lets soldiers shed their burdens and sprint forward is the culture this unit has gradually built over the years—allowing mistakes, tolerating failure, encouraging trial and error."
This culture is changing the way soldiers view honor. Staff Sergeant First Class Mao Kaining looked at the gleaming gold medals in the honor room and spoke plainly: "In the past, facing this 'legacy left by our predecessors,' I felt like a criminal if even a chip of paint fell off. Now I don't think that way anymore. Honor can't be carried as a burden—it has to be a spark, kindling more torches. In the honors our predecessors won, I am not the protagonist, and I have no halo, but in the future I am willing to pass this torch on!"
Not long ago, the battalion organized a "honor retrospective (荣誉回溯)" activity. Squad Leader Duan Yuqi, who had been awarded a third-class merit citation, stood before the entire company. He did not speak about his achievements—he spoke about one of his own mistakes: "During an exercise, I was nervous and called out a tactical command incorrectly. At the after-action review, I wrote this up as a lesson plan for the whole company to learn from. Someone asked me why I would expose my own shortcomings. I said: when I'm no longer afraid of people knowing my weaknesses, that's when I truly own this honor."
The medals in the honor room reflected a gentle light under the lamps, falling evenly on every soldier. Further away, Instructor Zang still remembered the echo of that awards ceremony in the auditorium—like summer thunder rolling from one end to the other, rolling into the hearts of generation after generation of soldiers.
*Soldiers of a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Zhejiang General Corps conducting training. Photo by Yao Zhixiang.*
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**Editor's Connection**
*Barracks Observation section editor in dialogue with the political commissar of a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Zhejiang General Corps——*
**Activating the New Driving Force of "Fighting for Honor"**
Honor is a soldier's second life. In the course of our military's struggle, countless crimson battle flags and golden medals have shone with brilliant radiance like stars. In an era of strong individual consciousness and pluralistic values, how do we keep pace with the times and activate the new driving force of "fighting for honor (为荣誉而战)"? How do we find the optimal balance between "the individual" and "the collective"? This section's editor engaged in a dialogue with the political commissar of a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Zhejiang General Corps on these questions.
**Editor:** Between individual value and collective honor, how can each fulfill the other?
**Political Commissar:** Between individual value and collective honor, the relationship is fundamentally one of mutual fulfillment. In the past we had a habitual way of thinking: talking about the collective meant talking less about the individual; talking about the individual risked diluting the collective. In fact, the key to "mutual fulfillment (彼此成就)" lies in the word "mutual (彼此)"—it implies a two-way commitment. True collective honor should allow soldiers to simultaneously confirm two things: my effort has been seen by the collective, and my growth cannot be separated from the collective's support.
**Editor:** Your detachment has explored many innovative methods and approaches to inspire a sense of honor among soldiers. In this process, how do you prevent the substance from becoming hollow?
**Political Commissar:** The vitality of honor lies in practice. Building honor must emphasize real results and prize innovation. The Regulations on Military Meritorious Service, Honor, and Commendation (《军队功勋荣誉表彰条例》) states clearly: "Return military honor to its true essence of fighting (使军人荣誉回归打仗本真)." No matter how much innovation in form, the fundamental principle never changes—one must never forget that honor was born for war. Honor serves the goal of winning, not the decoration of appearances. Any innovation must withstand "three questions (三个叩问)": Does it point toward the future battlefield? Does it powerfully inspire fighting spirit (血性)? Does it serve the enhancement of combat capability? As long as the answers are affirmative, forms may flourish in a hundred ways, but the orientation must remain consistent.
**Editor:** Grassroots units in the new era face some new challenges in building a culture of honor. How should these be effectively addressed?
**Political Commissar:** Building a culture of honor is fundamentally a "soul-forging project (铸魂工程)." First, while upholding the core values of loyalty and dedication, we must innovate the content of honor, its modes of expression, its educational vehicles, and its incentive mechanisms, so that they resonate with the new generation of soldiers and vibrate in harmony with new-quality combat capabilities (新质战斗力). Second, we must improve scientific, transparent, and widely recognized evaluation and incentive mechanisms, ensuring there are rules to follow and regulations to abide by. Third, targeting the characteristics of different soldier groups, we must explore establishing honor awards suited to the characteristics of the era and the features of different posts, implement tiered and categorized honor education and guidance, and strengthen emotional bonds and identity. Fourth, we must actively tell "team stories," expand the reach of honor, and cultivate a healthy external environment.
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**A Participant Speaks**
**The Cookstove Is Not Far from Honor**
■ Staff Sergeant First Class Liu Tao
That day, after the awards ceremony ended, I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep. My mind played like a film, running through all fourteen years of being a mess section leader.
I remembered one winter during a cold-weather field march exercise—we set up a field stove outdoors to cook, our hands red and numb from the cold, barely able to grip a knife to cut vegetables. A new soldier asked me: "Section Leader, are we cooks really soldiers?" I said "of course we are," but honestly, I didn't feel confident saying it.
I also remembered one time when the company had a brilliant performance in an assessment, and the comrades were celebrating in the mess hall. I carried out the last dish and quietly stood at the kitchen doorway. Watching them happy, I was happy too. Inside the door was their celebration; outside the door was my cookstove. Over the years I've tasted this feeling many times—it would be a lie to say there was no sense of loss.
That day in the auditorium, when my comrades hung the medals around my neck, I suddenly felt a "door" open. In all my years of service, I had heard countless rounds of applause, but not one of them had been specifically for me. That day, I heard it. It turned out that every step I had walked, someone had been watching.
Afterward, every time a new cook was assigned to the section, I told them what happened that day. I said: every dish we make is connected to the scores on the training ground. One new soldier didn't believe me. I said: when you taste that feeling yourself, you'll believe it. He asked me again: "Section Leader, after all these years of cooking, what honor do you still want?" I said: making sure every soldier in the company eats well at every meal—that is my honor.
I know that honor is not someone handing you a plaque. It's knowing that what you do is "connected" to something larger—our cookstove, and the training ground, and the center of the target, are all connected.
*(Compiled by Zhou Yiren)*