Always Carry the 'Soldier's Heart': Cadres on Attachment Duty Can Open Soldiers' Hearts and Genuinely Solve Problems
Cadres on Attachment Duty: Set Aside Rank, Enter the Soldier's Heart
■ Yu Haoyang, Cadre of a Certain People's Armed Police Unit
Illustration by Lu Yonghao
I have not been long in my posting, transferred from the interior to the plateau. The further I go into the harsh and remote grassroots units, the more I feel the warmth in the soldiers' hearts. Reading the article recently published in the Military Daily, "Set Aside the 'Official Airs,' Open Up the 'Heart,'" I felt a strong resonance. The principles articulated in that piece are precisely what I have come to understand most deeply during these past several months with plateau units: the image of a cadre on attachment duty is not built by putting on airs, but by setting aside rank and entering the soldiers' hearts through action.
After reporting to my plateau post, before my first visit to the grassroots, colleagues at the headquarters warned me: the soldiers here are mostly reserved by nature—you ask one question, they answer one question. You need extra patience. Sure enough, at the first unit I visited, the soldiers sat ramrod straight during the discussion forum. Whatever I asked, they answered "everything's fine" or "no difficulties." A few soldiers who were more articulate praised their unit and their leaders. The atmosphere was so polite it felt like there was a pane of glass between us. I thought to myself then: this will never work—if words can't get through, how can the work get through?
So I adjusted my approach. At subsequent units, I did not rush to convene discussion forums. Instead, I first walked through the squad bays and stood for a while on the edge of the training ground. During training breaks, I found a corner to sit down and asked soldiers where they were from, how many people were in their families, whether the altitude sickness was bad, whether they had been in contact with their families over the weekend. It all sounds like small talk, but it was precisely this kind of talk that worked best—soldiers gradually relaxed and became willing to communicate.
Last month, during a grassroots research visit, I found that one company's greenhouse was exceptionally well tended, with fruits and vegetables growing vigorously. Rather than making a quick circuit and leaving, I found a small stool, sat down, and struck up a conversation with Zhou Chao, the soldier responsible for greenhouse cultivation. In the course of talking, I learned that he had a genuine passion for growing things from the bottom of his heart. He was always thinking about how to make vegetables grow better on the plateau, and regularly used his weekend rest time to go to the garrison's vegetable garden to learn techniques. We talked animatedly about everything from soil improvement to pest and disease control. Later, the company cadres told me that Zhou Chao had said he was actually a little nervous at first, but when he saw that I was genuinely interested in his work, he could not help but want to say more.
In truth, the demands of grassroots officers and soldiers are not high. They do not need you to say many fine-sounding words. What matters is whether you are sincerely willing to listen to them talk about their own stories and to recognize their contributions.
Many of our unit's subordinate elements are in high-altitude areas—those above 4,000 meters above sea level are not few—with oxygen content less than 60 percent of that in the interior. Serving there as a soldier is itself an act of dedication. If you go to such a unit still putting on "official airs"—walking in to inspect, opening your mouth to interrogate, leaving behind a list of problems when you go—what will the soldiers think? They will not say it aloud, but in their hearts they will have already closed the door.
If you regard yourself as a "leader," the soldiers will regard you as a "leader"—the kind they respect from a distance. You stand on the platform; they sit below. You speak; they listen. You ask; they answer. It looks orderly, but in reality heart and heart are separated by a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers. During research visits, pay more attention to their physical condition, ask in detail whether there are real difficulties, and treat them sincerely as comrades—only then will the soldiers treat you as a comrade, the kind who speaks from the heart. Only when they are willing to tell the truth can problems be truly solved. This is not some profound work technique; it is the plain truth that one heart wins another.
Setting aside "official airs" means not only speaking politely, eating together, and training together—it also means discarding the headquarters mentality of "holding up a camera to find faults." Director Ding in the reported article did not treat "discovering problems" as a performance achievement to check off, but treated "solving problems" as the proper duty of attachment work. This requires setting aside the "official mindset" (官念) even more than simply sitting down to chat with soldiers—setting aside that utilitarian impulse to bring back some "material" to prove you did your job.
There is also a particularly incisive metaphor in the article: "In the past, work teams going down to the grassroots were like holding up a camera, focusing on notebooks, checklists, and other trace-leaving objects, while the faces of officers and soldiers were blurred." If the focus is off, even the best camera cannot take a good photograph; if the mind is off, even the hardest work will not earn the soldiers' recognition. The eyes of grassroots officers and soldiers are sharp and clear. When they feel the genuine sincerity of someone working to relieve their difficulties, the trust they give is more solid than any polite show of closeness.
Some time ago, I went on attachment duty to the most harsh and remote company along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway line. The altitude there is nearly 5,000 meters—high, cold, and oxygen-deficient, with extremely harsh natural conditions. Soldiers reported to me that the company's oxygen generator broke down frequently, and each repair seriously disrupted everyone's daily rest and training. But under the relevant regulations, the oxygen generator had not yet reached its retirement age, and the process for applying for a replacement could not proceed. Looking at the soldiers' purplish lips and their yearning gazes, I felt deeply troubled. I immediately reported the situation to the leadership, explaining in detail the actual difficulties at the grassroots level. The leadership immediately stated: "Regulations are fixed, but people are flexible—we must have this kind of resolve." Before long, dedicated funds were allocated, and a new oxygen generator was quickly provided to the company.
Less of the inspector's swagger, more of the sincerity of heart-to-heart exchange; less of the hollow work of excessive trace-leaving, more of the resolve to get things done solidly—the image of a cadre on attachment duty is built precisely in the moment of lowering one's posture and bending down to get things done. The plateau can create a gap in elevation, but it cannot create a gap between hearts; rank can draw a line of identity, but it cannot sever the bonds of comradeship. As long as you always carry a "soldier's heart" (兵心) and keep the soldiers in your heart, you can open the door of their hearts and genuinely solve their difficulties.
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Does Your Research Report Have the "Soldier's Flavor" (兵味)?
■ He Hongjiao, Cadre of a Certain Army Unit
A blank checklist, a shift standing guard at a sentry post, a small folding stool placed among the soldiers—the article recently published in the Military Daily, "Set Aside the 'Official Airs,' Open Up the 'Heart,'" highlights several small entry points in the transformation of headquarters work style during the ongoing deepening of political rectification training (政治整训), and also reflects a problem easily overlooked in inspection and research visits: does the research report have "soldier's flavor" (兵味)?
To be candid, at present all levels are vigorously promoting the practice of going deep into the grassroots for research. Yet when one opens certain research reports, though the writing is standard and the logic internally consistent, after reading them one always feels something is missing—you cannot smell the atmosphere of squad and platoon barracks, cannot feel the joys and sorrows of the soldiers, cannot touch the hopes in their hearts, and there is no clear articulation of ideas and countermeasures for solving problems. In short, they lack "soldier's flavor."
What is the "soldier's flavor" in a research report? It is not how many times the words "grassroots" and "officers and soldiers" appear in the report, nor how many person-visits were tallied or how much funding was coordinated. True "soldier's flavor" contains the words soldiers are willing to whisper close to your ear, and the trust they show when they open their hearts without reservation.
Examining the root causes of research reports losing their "soldier's flavor," the first is mistaking "having arrived" for "having embedded." Some cadres during attachment duty still treat headquarters business as their primary focus; time for face-to-face communication with officers and soldiers is severely squeezed; embedding with a company as a "soldier" (当兵) degenerates into embedding with a company as a "guest" (当宾)—staying in a private room, reading documents, listening to briefings, and simply refusing to sit on the same bench as the soldiers. The body arrives but the heart does not; even if a person moves into squad and platoon barracks, the mind is still pulled away by headquarters documents and cables. Such research is off course from the very beginning.
Second is mistaking "having heard" for "having grasped." Hearing officers and soldiers reply "everything's fine" and "no real difficulties" at a discussion forum, one assumes the truth has been heard and the real situation grasped—not realizing that genuine grievances rarely appear in formal meeting records, but are often hidden in the "unguarded words" of careful, informal conversation.
At a deeper level, the pathology is mistaking "leaving traces" for "achieving results." If the "thickness" of a problem checklist is equated with the "depth" of attachment-duty assistance, it becomes easy to make much of small problems and then treat the research report as a tool for leaving traces.
To restore the rich "soldier's flavor" to research reports, the rigid "research outline" must be transformed into a sincere "listening list." When communicating with soldiers, ask less "what difficulties do you have" and instead ask "what did you talk about the last time you called home"; ask less "what do you think of political education" and instead ask "which education session recently moved you most." True research should not be a matter of going out to verify predetermined conclusions, but of going out with a spirit of respect to listen.
At the same time, the desk must truly be "moved" to the squad and platoon front line. Only by "squatting down" can one see, from a level-gaze perspective (平视视角), the blind spots that are otherwise overlooked. The scene in the article of Staff Officer Jin standing guard in place of a soldier is moving. That one shift of standing guard produced not only a firsthand sense of the inadequacy of outdoor duty cooling equipment, but also the force to push the problem toward resolution in less than two days.
Putting down the article and reflecting, "soldier's flavor" is not simply a report-writing technique. It reflects the quality of research work style and tests the purity of one's view of political achievement—whether the return from "looking at traces" to "looking at real results" has been achieved, and whether the endpoint of research points toward the starting point of problem resolution.
How close you are to the soldiers is how strong the "soldier's flavor" in your research report will be. Before picking up the pen next time, it is worth first asking: does my research report have "soldier's flavor"? If the answer is still uncertain, do not rush to spread out the paper and start writing. First, step out the door, sink the heart down, and move the folding stool into the midst of the soldiers.
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Open Forum
What the grassroots needs are cadres on attachment duty who can genuinely help solve problems—not passing "visitors" who make a cursory tour. To truly integrate into the grassroots, one must first set the right mindset: attachment duty is not "gilding" but "tempering," not "being a guest" but "being the master of the house." When first arriving at a company, start by reading through the company history, memorizing the names of officers and soldiers—be able to call people by name on the training ground, be able to articulate principles in education sessions, and treat the "temporary stopping point" as a "responsibility field" to be cultivated. Sink the body down: make more rounds of the training ground, attend more squad affairs meetings, say a few more words of everyday conversation in heart-to-heart talks, compile the things that make officers and soldiers scratch their heads into a list and work out solutions. Shoulder the burden solidly: step forward for urgent and difficult tasks, fully leverage the resource advantages of the headquarters, resolve the bottlenecks and difficulties of the grassroots, ensure that every matter receives a response and every issue reaches a conclusion—so that within the limited time of attachment and acting duty, real and tangible assistance results are left for the grassroots unit, and weighty reflections and insights are gained for oneself.
—Li Long, Cadre of a Certain Army Unit
The article "Set Aside the 'Official Airs,' Open Up the 'Heart'" points to a clear orientation: investigation is the foundation, research is the key, and implementation is the purpose. Cadres on attachment duty must not only bring their ears to listen, but also bring their minds to think and their feelings to act. This integrated "investigate—research—act" (调—研—办) work chain converts research results into real improvements in combat capability and into a genuine sense of gain for officers and soldiers, truly achieving the leap from "paper" to "ground."
At present, the accelerated advancement of the force's transformation and development means that officers' and soldiers' ideological outlooks, training methods, and living needs are also in dynamic flux. Relying on only a few attachment visits is generally insufficient to grasp the full picture, let alone achieve long-term governance. Headquarters at all levels must both uphold institutional arrangements such as serving as soldiers and embedding with companies (当兵蹲连) and paired assistance (挂钩帮建), and also make good use of online suggestion boxes, candid discussion meetings (恳谈会), and after-action review meetings (复盘会) to expand research channels—building a three-dimensional research network of "online plus offline," "concentrated plus dispersed," and "fixed-point plus random"—so as to turn a "gust of wind" into a "four-seasons wind," stay in resonance with the grassroots, and ensure that Party committee decisions are rooted in the soil of practice and closely attuned to the pulse of officers and soldiers.
—Liu Yang, Cadre of a Certain Army Unit