Dog Days Sentry Post Inspection | Visiting an Army "Red Army" Regiment's Turpan-Garrison Unit — Officers Stand Watch to Gauge Soldiers' Conditions
A Reporter Visits an Army "Red Army" Regiment's Turpan-Garrison Unit —
Beneath Flaming Mountain: Officers Stand Watch to Gauge Soldiers' Conditions
■ Li Xiaolong, PLA Daily Reporter Wang Yue | Illustration: Fang Han
During the dog days of summer (三伏时节), a reporter traveled to an Army "Red Army" regiment's Turpan-garrison unit, stationed beneath Flaming Mountain. Stepping off the vehicle, a wall of heat hit immediately.
It was midday rest period, and the cicadas were growing louder by the moment. The reporter noticed that the soldier standing post at the camp gate was not an enlisted man but a major. Zhang Zhilin, a staff officer accompanying the reporter, explained that the man was Instructor Lü, the officer in charge of the garrison battalion.
In the shimmering heat, Instructor Lü stood gripping his rifle in full duty gear, eyes alert, sweat streaming steadily down his face.
"Does the instructor have to stand watch too?" the reporter asked, puzzled. "Turpan is ringed by mountains on all sides, and the dog days are especially brutal here," Zhang Zhilin said. "They implement an all-hands sentry rotation (全员上哨制度) — all officers are assigned to duty squads and platoons and share the same posts and shifts as the soldiers." He pulled up the weather forecast on his phone to show the reporter: the outdoor temperature had already exceeded 43 degrees Celsius.
Twenty minutes later, the shift change arrived. Instructor Lü completed the handoff with the relieving sentry and stepped down from the post, drenched in sweat. The reporter handed him a bottle of water, and the two fell into conversation.
"The soldiers train through the scorching heat all morning — midday is a precious window for rest and recovery," Instructor Lü explained. To give everyone more rest time, Party member officers had voluntarily stepped up to take on sentry duty during the peak-heat noon hours. Reviewing the sentry logbook, the reporter found that during the midday rest period each day, posts were mostly manned by officers, with the instructor's name appearing repeatedly.
After stepping down from his post, Instructor Lü did not return to the battalion headquarters to rest. Instead, he took his notebook and set off to inspect each sentry post — an invariable routine he followed after every shift. Along the way, the reporter noticed that every post was stocked with supplies including Huoxiang Zhengqi Water and ice packs.
"We not only equipped every post with heat-prevention and cooling supplies, but also made appropriate adjustments to the length of individual midday sentry shifts," Instructor Lü said. On the subject of that change, he recounted his experience standing the noon watch for the first time.
That day, the outdoor temperature was exceptionally high, and the old air conditioner was nearly useless for cooling. In the second half of his shift, Instructor Lü noticed his concentration flagging and his head growing heavy and dull.
"Sitting in the office, we look at data and listen to reports; standing at the post, we feel the heat and understand the hardship firsthand," he said. After the all-hands sentry rotation was implemented, several officers came to him to discuss their experience standing the noon watch and put forward specific suggestions: "shorten midday sentry shifts," "increase heat-prevention supplies," "replace the cooling equipment," "build shade canopies." They then submitted a post-facility improvement plan to the regiment's functional departments, which the regiment Party committee approved without delay. "Having officers rotate through the midday watch lets everyone genuinely feel the weight of sentry duty and better understand what the soldiers are hoping for," Instructor Lü said.
At the ammunition depot post, company officer Wang Chenhao was on duty. Instructor Lü told the reporter that Wang Chenhao had just stood the midday watch the day before, yet had come again today to relieve Sergeant Yalikku Yasen of his post. It turned out that Yalikku had accidentally sprained his ankle during training a few days earlier but was still insisting on standing his own watch. Upon learning this, Wang Chenhao went to Yalikku directly: "Standing watch in this heat is bad for your ankle's recovery. You rest easy — I'll take this shift for you!"
"Turpan is not only a place of high temperatures; it is also a place of high spirit," Instructor Lü said. Ten kilometers from the garrison, a themed sculpture commemorating the spirit of military land reclamation (军垦精神) stands as a monument to a chapter of history worth remembering.
In early 1949, Comrade Wang Zhen volunteered: "I ask to go to the most arduous places, to every frontier that needs us, to Xinjiang!" After the founding of New China, he led his troops into Xinjiang, where officers and soldiers held a rifle in one hand and a pickaxe in the other, garrisoning the frontier while opening wasteland for cultivation (屯垦戍边、开荒造田). In the first lunar month of 1950, a snow road stretching more than 20 kilometers was crowded with people loading stones onto sleds and running along the snow-packed track. Running at the very front was Wang Zhen himself.
To advance frontier infrastructure construction, he personally led army commanders, division commanders, and soldiers at every level to haul sleds and transport stone. In the bitter cold, Wang Zhen's padded jacket was soaked through with sweat, then frozen stiff by the wind — pressed against his body, ice-cold to the bone — yet he worked with undiminished vigor. Inspired by Wang Zhen's example, officers, soldiers, and people of all ethnic groups threw themselves into the work of reclamation and construction.
"Today, officers rotating through the midday watch and voluntarily relieving injured or ill soldiers of their duty is a continuation and practice of the tradition of 'leading from the front, setting an example' (身先士卒、模范带头)," Instructor Lü told the reporter. "In the near term, we plan to organize all battalion officers to conduct in-situ instruction (现地教学) using Comrade Wang Zhen's story of garrisoning the frontier through land reclamation as the teaching material, to conduct in-depth study on 'how officer cadres should take the lead,' and to guide Party member officers to carry forward fine traditions and shoulder their mission and responsibilities."
Returning to the camp entrance, the reporter observed an intelligent license-plate recognition system operating efficiently, automatically screening and verifying incoming vehicles, with sentries needing only to monitor from inside the guardhouse. A recently replaced air conditioner blew a steady stream of cool air. Beside the post, a refrigerator labeled "Convenience Service Point" (便民服务点) held a large container of lightly salted water; the reporter took a drink and felt an immediate wave of refreshment.
"This container of lightly salted water serves both the sentries on duty and passersby," Instructor Lü explained. In past dog-day summers, sentries frequently encountered pedestrians suffering from heat exhaustion; the lightly salted water could help them rehydrate and cool down in a timely manner. "This service initiative was also a suggestion put forward by an officer based on his own sentry experience," he added.
Lan Zhongli at the sentry post. Photo by Yi Zhiming
As the interview concluded and the reporter prepared to leave, the soldiers of the battalion's First Company happened to return from training. Their camouflage uniforms were soaked through, their faces flushed red from the sun. As they reached the sentry post, the officer in charge, Lan Zhongli, directed the unit's backbone cadres to lead the men back to the barracks to rehydrate and rest, then walked straight toward the post himself. It turned out that the soldier scheduled to relieve the sentry had shown mild heat-exhaustion symptoms during training, and Lan Zhongli had volunteered to stand the shift in his place.
At the post, a sweat-drenched Lan Zhongli completed the handoff with the sentry and took the rifle with practiced ease. Not far away, on the battle-flag plaza, two battle flags — "Courageous and Tenacious" (勇猛顽强) and "Truly Tenacious" (真正顽强) — flew in the breeze.
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A Cool Breeze Over the High-Temperature Sentry Post
■ Wang Yue
The three-foot sentry post (三尺哨位) reflects one's original aspiration; work style is revealed in the smallest details. Standing watch beneath Turpan's summer sun, in temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius, is the genuine daily reality for frontier officers and soldiers. That the garrison battalion's Party member officers voluntarily take the midday watch may look like nothing more than standing a single shift — but in practice it is a vivid exercise in transforming work style (转作风), warming soldiers' hearts (暖兵心), and rallying morale (聚士气).
Nothing at the grassroots level is trivial; every leaf and branch touches the heart. The true state of soldiers' hearts and minds is not found in the data reports on office desks — it is found on the sun-scorched sentry post, in the sweat flowing down soldiers' faces. One genuine experience of role reversal is worth more than a hundred paper-based investigations. By stepping onto the high-temperature sentry post, the battalion's officers not only felt firsthand what soldiers endure in the blazing heat, but also identified with greater precision the pain points and difficulties that exist at the grassroots level.
From replacing cooling equipment and building shade canopies, to stocking heat-prevention supplies and adjusting duty shift lengths — a series of targeted, practical measures not only solved concrete problems but also put the fine tradition of "officer-soldier camaraderie and unity between superiors and subordinates" (官兵友爱、上下团结) into tangible practice. The story of the garrison battalion's officers rotating through the midday watch is a reminder to leaders at every level: only by exchanging sincerity for soldiers' trust and rallying morale through concrete action can one forge a battle-hardened force that is united in purpose and dares to fight and is determined to win.