Grassroots Dispatches | A Radar Station's "Road Up the Mountain"
A Radar Station's "Road Up the Mountain"
■ PLA Daily Reporter Liu Min Illustration by Zeng Yuming
Winding upward along a rugged mountain road, after more than an hour the vehicle came to a slow stop in front of the garrison of a Central Theater Command Air Force radar station perched on a mountainside. In early summer, wildflowers were just beginning to bloom at an elevation of more than 1,700 meters—the seasons here run nearly a month behind those at the foot of the mountain.
The radar station's garrison is small but orderly and well-kept. The radar shelter is deployed right within the compound, and all manner of facilities are in place. After a quick look around, the reporter thought to himself: the officers and soldiers standing watch in an environment like this have it fairly convenient.
At that moment, Station Commander Li Siqi pointed toward the rear of the mountain: "Come on, let's go 'up the mountain' and have a look." The reporter was momentarily puzzled—weren't they already on the mountain?
Rounding the barracks, a stairway built into the mountainside came into view. The steps were neatly constructed, the cement joints still fresh—clearly someone had maintained them recently. Li Siqi told the reporter that this was the path leading to the radar position at the summit, and the station's officers and soldiers called it the "road up the mountain." In the past, the radar shelter was mounted at the summit, and officers and soldiers relied entirely on this stairway to go up and down for duty, training, and emergency repairs. At the beginning of this year, the station was designated a pilot unit and moved the duty battle station (值班战位) from the summit down to a command room on the mountainside, enabling faster combat-readiness response. The need to go up the mountain dropped sharply; on a routine basis, only a small team needs to go up to maintain the radar antenna and carry out standard inspections.
The reporter couldn't help asking: "Now that the battle station has been moved down, and people don't go up as often, is it still worth the effort to maintain these steps?"
Li Siqi did not answer directly. Instead, he brought up First Sergeant (一级军士长) Jiang Lifeng, now retired. Sergeant Jiang spent nearly 30 years at the station, witnessed this road built from nothing, and walked these steps to the summit every single day. Sometimes he went up alone to inspect the equipment; sometimes he brought a few new soldiers along, talking as they walked, telling stories from the old days.
The reporter's group encountered First Senior Sergeant (一级上士) Jia Xinzhao—Jiang Lifeng's apprentice—in the middle of maintaining the steps. He worked with practiced ease while new soldiers assisted at his side. During a rest break, Jia Xinzhao pointed at the ground beneath his feet and recounted the history of this road:
When the radar station was first built, there was no road at all. The equipment was at the summit, and getting up and down meant forcing your way through rocks and weeds on foot. When it rained, the dirt slope turned to mud, and taking a fall was routine. One night during an emergency mobilization drill, a soldier ran up in the dark, sprained his ankle, and pushed through the pain all the way to his battle station. After that day, Sergeant Jiang and his comrades made up their minds: a road that everyone walked every day absolutely had to be built. With no machinery, they worked with hammers and chisels alone. From the mountainside to the summit—399 steps—the road was carved out just like that.
"Because of mission requirements, we had to walk this road several times a day. The moment the combat-readiness alarm sounded, we had to charge straight up the mountain, arriving at our battle stations gasping for breath, with no time to recover before going on duty." Jia Xinzhao said that after experiences like that, the station later established a tradition: with each new intake of soldiers, the veterans first take them on a walk up this road.
"When we were discussing whether it was necessary to build these steps, the station Party branch held a special meeting," Li Siqi said. Everyone quickly reached consensus: build them—and not just build them, but build them well. This road is not merely a passageway to the summit; it also represents the mission and responsibility (使命担当) of radar soldiers. As long as there is a battle station or equipment up there, this road must be maintained.
Climbing the steps all the way up, the wind at the summit suddenly grew fierce, buffeting those who stood there. Radar technician, Second Senior Sergeant (二级上士) Xue Ren said this wind was actually mild. One winter during an emergency repair, the temperature dropped to below minus 30 degrees Celsius, and wind-driven sand particles made it impossible to keep one's eyes open. He and the station commander ran up from the base of the mountain, their hands stiffening from the cold. The two of them would warm their hands together and then keep working, fighting continuously for more than three hours before finally clearing a sudden malfunction in a new-type radar. When the mission was complete, they gathered the young backbone personnel and compiled the lessons learned from that low-temperature repair into a set of procedures, which became an important reference for equipment support at the station.
As dusk fell, the mountains grew still, and lights came on in several rooms of the garrison. In the operations research room, the station commander led the "study-and-research detachment" (学研小分队) in war-gaming exercise plans, working through the handling of special situations (特情) and anti-jamming operations; in the study room, plotter Meng Xiangsen was drilling extra practice on intelligence transmission, refusing to stop even as blisters formed on his fingers—he said his scores had just reached the passing mark, and he was still far from excellent.
Today, though the duty battle station has been moved down the mountain, the officers and soldiers have set out on another "road up the mountain"—equipment has been upgraded, conditions have improved, but there is no end to enhancing professional capability. They have carried forward the same drive that once built those steps and applied it to studying and planning for war (研战谋战): every training subject is a new step on the stairway, every technical challenge a stone that must be chiseled into shape. The officers and soldiers say this road must be walked—and walked well.
Standing at the summit, gazing at the radar antenna rising above the surrounding peaks, the reporter suddenly recalled a detail noticed on the way up—the sea-buckthorn trees lining both sides of the steps were in bloom, clusters of small yellow-green flowers opening along the branches. The officers and soldiers said that sea-buckthorn fears neither barren soil, nor wind and sand, nor bitter cold, and from this they had drawn a lesson: the poorer the soil, the deeper the roots; the fiercer the storm, the stronger the will; the harsher the cold, the sweeter the fruit. Is this not another expression of the spirit of the "road up the mountain"? It was true when they were chiseling stone to lay a path, and it is equally true now when they work through the night in the command room: grit your teeth when conditions are hard, and don't let up when conditions improve.
Walking back down from the summit, the reporter turned for one last look at that stretch of road. The 399 steps lay quietly embedded in the mountainside, one end connected to the hardships of the past, the other leading to today's battle stations. Every officer and soldier at the radar station knows clearly that before them lies another road up the mountain—toward higher standards, faster response, and stronger capability on the path to building a stronger military (强军路)—and every step of that journey must be taken with solid footing.
Editor's Reflection
The Symphony of "Two Roads"
■ Liu Weiqi
There is a classic scene in the television drama "Soldiers' Sortie" (士兵突击): Xu Sanduo, alone, quietly builds a road across a desolate and lonely grassland. It is precisely that road that helps the soldiers of "Grassland Squad Five" recover the bearing that soldiers ought to have.
Following the reporter's footsteps through this radar station, this editor felt the same kind of tenacity. The battle station has been moved down the mountain—should the steps leading up still be maintained? The officers and soldiers answered without hesitation: yes, maintain them—not just maintain them, but maintain them well. Some things may seem "useless," yet they can elevate the spirit; some roads may seem "hard to walk," yet they are precisely what tempers character.
The changes at the radar station reflect a new challenge in grassroots (基层) development: equipment has been upgraded, data links have been optimized, and working and training conditions are incomparably better than before—so how does one maintain, as always, the charging posture of the struggle?
"Grassroots units must be treated as fertile ground for carrying forward fine traditions; we must actively explore the laws and beneficial practices of grassroots development under new circumstances, attach importance to work that addresses root causes, benefits the long term, and builds lasting momentum, and lay a more solid foundation for troop development and combat effectiveness." These words point to the key to solving the problem—the officers' and soldiers' battle stations may be adjusted, but the "battle station" of the spirit must not be lost; technical means may be iterated, but the fundamental character of hard struggle (艰苦奋斗) must not fade.
The real-world "road up the mountain" carries memory and inheritance; the "road up the mountain" of capability leads toward victory and winning in war—and the symphony of these "two roads" thereby becomes all the more concrete. On the journey of building a stronger military, we must continuously enrich the spiritual content of the revolutionary soldier of the new era, and let the tenacity of "one hammer, one chisel" (一锤一凿) blaze with new vitality at new battle stations. The goal of the centenary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army is pressing near; from every step on the stairway to every battle station, what is needed are travelers who press forward in unbroken succession.