A Rocket Force Unit Aids in Building a Local Elementary School——
East Wind Brushes the Silk Road, Children's Dreams Reach for the Stars
■ PLA Daily Reporter Ma Jialong, Special Correspondent Wang Xinglai
Rocket Force soldiers correct the drill movements of members of the school's honor guard for the national flag. Photo by Liu Guangzhu.
In the heart of the Hehuang Valley, the East Wind brings warmth. Just after the May Day holiday, officers and soldiers of a Rocket Force unit entered the local elementary school they had helped build, carrying out a "Red Stories Enter the Campus" activity.
"Classmates, if you were Red Army soldiers at that time, facing such hardships and dangers, what would you choose to do?" Inside the national defense education exhibition hall that the unit helped build last year, "soldier-instructor" Xu Wanru stood before a sand table of the Long March route, guiding students to intuitively feel the countless hardships of the Long March through the terrain and landforms depicted in the sand table. "The Red Army's Long March was not only a great expedition, but also a profound spiritual baptism. We hope that in your future studies and lives, you will take the Red Army veterans as your example and use steadfast conviction to overcome all difficulties…"
When the activity ended, a group of students with "plateau-reddened" cheeks gathered around Xu Wanru, chattering with endless questions. Sixth-grader Ma Zixuan held a model engraved with the words "Ethnic Unity Rocket" and said proudly: "We made this under our teacher's guidance. I believe that one day it will carry our wishes into space."
The East Wind brushes the Silk Road; children's dreams reach for the stars. These mountain children's boundless longing for the night sky is the abundant fruit borne of the unit's sustained aid and support work.
"We don't just want to 'give money and goods'—we want to use the unique resources of the military to plant in these plateau children a seed of dreams to pursue the stars and the sea." In 2022, the unit established a paired co-building relationship with this elementary school, located along the ancient Silk Road, and at the unveiling ceremony of the "August 1st People-Loving School," made a solemn pledge: using "Rocket Force Silk Road Education Assistance" as a bond, to promote students of all ethnic groups in learning together, being educated together, and growing together, continuously forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation (铸牢中华民族共同体意识).
"Now I'm a 'little soldier' too!" In the corridor of the teaching building, student Zhaxi Lamu shared with the officers and soldiers her pride the first time she put on a camouflage uniform and saluted: "I want to be like you in the future—brave, strong, and responsible."
Zhaxi Lamu is one of the students sponsored by the unit. "More than half of our school's students are from ethnic minorities, and some students come from families with lower incomes and more difficult living conditions," the school principal explained. From the very beginning of the paired aid-building relationship, the unit specifically established the "Rocket Force Silk Road Scholarship," providing targeted annual funding to students from financially struggling families; to date, more than 500 students have benefited.
Alongside educational assistance, the unit has continued to invest dedicated funds, steadily transforming the campus into an educational base integrating national defense education, ethnic unity, and science and technology enlightenment. Today, this county-level elementary school on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has taken on an entirely new look.
In the classrooms, smart electronic blackboards donated by the unit display vast star-trail maps in vivid clarity; students gaze intently, as if immersed in the Milky Way. A smart education platform built for teachers and students analyzes teaching dynamics in real time, empowering the classroom with technology to improve quality and efficiency.
On the sports ground, a fully equipped military experience field has become a paradise for students, with functional areas including simulated trenches, obstacle courses, combined challenge zones, and camouflage tent encampments, all complete.
Along the corridors, themed artworks of "My Motherland in My Heart" burst with color: towering snow-capped mountains, rockets soaring skyward, children of all ethnic groups and PLA uncles standing hand in hand beneath the Five-Starred Red Flag—childlike brushstrokes sketching a sincere devotion of young hearts toward the Party.
Outside the classroom, on occasions such as Army Day on August 1st, National Defense Education Day, and the opening-of-school military training, the school holds "Little Soldier" experience camps. Officers and soldiers lead the children in drill formations, singing military songs, pitching tents, and making tactical sand tables, immersively experiencing a day of military camp life.
As the dismissal bell rings, students file out of their classrooms in an orderly manner. The "Military-Civilian Co-Construction Sculpture" in front of the teaching building and the "China Dream" paintings beside the "Ethnic Unity Wall" shine brilliantly in the glow of the fiery evening sunset.