After the Political Instructor's "Comeback," He Credits a Private Who Has Been in the Army Less Than a Year
Taking Young Soldiers as Teachers Has Become a New Trend ■ Yu Daqi, PLA Daily Special Correspondent Liu Yang
"Instructor, you were incredible!" Not long ago, a certain battalion of an Army brigade organized a UAV operation assessment. Company Political Instructor Zhang skillfully operated a UAV to complete a full-sequence flight, accurately identified all targets, and passed the assessment with an all-excellent score, drawing praise from officers and soldiers present.
Who could have imagined that, in a previous battalion-level assessment, Political Instructor Zhang had failed to meet the standard due to unfamiliarity with unmanned equipment operations, dragging down his company's results.
After his successful "comeback," Political Instructor Zhang, in front of all the company's officers and soldiers, credited the bulk of the achievement to Private Li Xingxing, who has been in the army less than a year. It turned out that Li Xingxing had been Political Instructor Zhang's "coaching teacher" for UAV operations.
After the previous assessment failure, Political Instructor Zhang reflected on himself and found that, when faced with new equipment, he and some veteran non-commissioned officers were slow to learn and improve, while certain young soldiers grasped new things much more quickly. Private Li Xingxing in particular, who had experience operating model aircraft, had grown into a UAV operations backbone within just a few months of enlisting. Political Instructor Zhang therefore took the initiative to examine his own training shortcomings and publicly declared: "I am going to take Li Xingxing as my teacher and learn UAV operations."
At the next day's training, Political Instructor Zhang brought a notebook filled with questions about equipment operations and sought out Li Xingxing for guidance. Seeing the instructor's sincere attitude, Li Xingxing set aside his earlier reservations and began from the most fundamental flight-control operations, demonstrating parameter-setting methods step by step and patiently answering every question. From then on, the two could often be seen on the training ground studying together.
The story of the "political instructor taking a private as his teacher" quickly sent ripples through the company.
Staff Sergeant First Class Shi Ziyang is an experienced backbone in armored-chassis maintenance, with the oft-repeated line "I've repaired more vehicles than you've driven." But during a realistic combat exercise and training event last year, when a vehicle fuel-line warning light came on, he led his crew in dismantling components for half a day before locating the fault, nearly delaying the entire process.
In the after-action review, conscript Liu Junjie—who had studied vehicle engineering in college—used digital diagnostic technology to pinpoint a concealed sensor fault in 15 minutes. Shi Ziyang was somewhat unconvinced, but genuinely could not figure it out; he wanted to ask for guidance but could not bring himself to do so.
Watching the instructor chase after Private Li Xingxing every day to ask about UAV operations, Shi Ziyang finally set aside his "pride" entirely. He gathered the maintenance notebooks he had accumulated over more than a decade and approached Liu Junjie, proposing that the two pair up.
The two hit it off immediately. Shi Ziyang passed on his maintenance experience to Liu Junjie, while Liu Junjie taught Shi Ziyang digital diagnostic methods. Before long, Shi Ziyang had not only mastered digital equipment diagnostic technology but had also worked with Liu Junjie to develop a rapid chassis fault-isolation method.
Shi Ziyang's story became a "living teaching example" inspiring a shift in thinking among the company's non-commissioned officers. One after another, they set aside their airs and began humbly seeking guidance from young comrades with specialized skills. Command-and-control technician Wang Tong sought out Corporal Xu Yang—who had studied software engineering before enlisting—to learn simulation planning, improving communication cable-laying schemes that had previously relied on experience-based estimation into software-simulated optimized plans. Mess hall squad leader Li Yong pulled along Private First Class Xiang Dezhi to learn how to create online meal-satisfaction questionnaires and use nutritional meal-planning software to adjust menus…
Taking young soldiers as teachers has become a new trend. Within just a few months, the company saw 12 non-commissioned officers and young soldiers form "mutual-assistance pairs," generating no small number of small training innovations. "People say veterans should look like veterans—but in fact, humbly studying and strengthening one's capabilities is what a veteran should look like." Witnessing this scene, Political Instructor Zhang was overjoyed and felt ever more strongly that his own experience of taking a teacher had been of extraordinary significance.
Brief Commentary
The roster gets an upgrade as a young clerk uses a small creative idea to unlock major efficiency gains; the veteran squad leader takes on a teacher as young soldiers apply their strengths to lift the company to a higher level. Two fresh stories from the company reflect the youthful energy and innovative wisdom that young officers and soldiers carry. On the march toward a stronger military (强军征程), they are like fresh blood, continuously injecting new drive and new vitality into grassroots development and combat training and preparation. (Zou Fei)