Preface
The military training for the class of 2021 took place from August 24th to September 8th. It was perhaps an unprecedented training session: under the conditions of pandemic prevention, the training of both the 2020 and 2021 cohorts of students was carried out simultaneously, with as many as twelve thousand participants, while the number of training officers was roughly on par with previous years.
It was my first time serving as a training officer. I was the deputy company commander of the Tenth Company in the Second Regiment, in charge of internal affairs work, and concurrently responsible for arranging the rotation of sentries, patrol teams, and other duties; occasionally I would also drop by the training ground to take a look. In the latter half of training, I was mainly responsible for managing members of the boxing formation. Setting aside what I gained, suffice it to say I got plenty tanned.
Daily Life
The schedule of training days was basically fixed. Morning training began at 5:45, and the end time was flexibly adjusted according to the rotating breakfast schedule. Sometimes we ended normally at 6:15 and went back to tidy up the dorm before regrouping; sometimes we trained right up until mealtime, then went to eat and came back to tidy up afterwards. Lunch and dinner times also rotated, so sometimes we ate immediately after training, and sometimes we returned to the dorm first before regrouping for a meal. With so many people this year, mealtimes stretched on for ages. At noon we basically didn't gather to head to the training ground until 14:50, so the lunch break was really quite generous.
In the evening we mostly took the trainees to the classroom for film viewing, and Instructor Yang would sometimes come over to chat off-the-cuff. Quite a lot of application letters were submitted within the company, precisely because the experienced Instructor Yang told us from the very start to focus on writing the application letters, otherwise there'd be no time to write them later. Originally, due to pandemic prevention requirements, we had four classrooms available for spaced seating. But after dividing up the platoons, only three were needed. However, many things had to be conveyed all together, so most of the time we still gathered in one classroom, which was unbearably hot and humid - the prevention measures might as well have been for nothing.
Internal Affairs Work
Afterwards we conducted three internal-affairs inspections within the company. After that I never lost my temper again - perhaps because no one was asking me to lose my temper. The Second Regiment's daily routine meeting originally said that Hu and I should give a talk once, but in the end it didn't happen (though I'd already prepared my draft); only Danli was asked to talk about the Xuexi Qiangguo app. As for internal affairs this year, things were actually simple, because the 2020 cohort had things harder to tidy up, and consequently the standards for the 2021 cohort were also lowered. What's more, after the locker-opening incident that had occurred earlier at Lantian, the requirements were lowered even further; even ranking results were only privately notified, no longer publicly posted.
As internal affairs was my main job, I took it very seriously. Although every internal-affairs critique felt a bit like squeezing toothpaste, and I covered a great many details, I did eventually compile a detailed self-check list for them, covering the vast majority of points to watch for during inspection. In the end we won the Internal Affairs Red Flag.
The first time I went down to the dorms to give an explanation, I wasn't yet practiced at it; the first time I conducted an inspection, I wasn't practiced either. Later I got much better at it. The key was using the memo app to record dorm numbers, then taking photos, and after the inspection ended, deducting points based on the photos and giving timely feedback. That way there wouldn't be the problem of being unable to give reasons after a student lodged an appeal.
The little notebook the school gave us recorded many critique points; here's a screenshot (I really need to practice my handwriting!):
The Hardships of Military Training
Military training is, of course, hard and tiring. By comparison, I felt I was even more tired than the trainees. Physical fatigue was secondary; the main thing was the mental exhaustion. Since I had no experience, I couldn't grasp the focus of the work, always wasting energy on trivial side-matters, which greatly reduced efficiency.
Even wearing sneakers, my toes still developed blood blisters. Even though I rarely went to the training ground, my daily step count was twenty to thirty thousand. Afterwards, my knees ached from standing and my ankles ached from walking. Perhaps it was due to my long-standing lack of exercise.
What I lacked most was water. When out and about I felt the moisture in my body was being constantly steamed away, so whenever I passed a vending machine I'd buy something to drink. At meals, besides ordering a coconut juice, I'd also add a bottle of orange-pulp drink. In the evening at the classroom recreational activities I'd buy plum drinks, and at the vending machine I'd buy Genki Forest sparkling water. At the company headquarters I sometimes drank coffee bought by Deputy Instructor Jiang, and also the big-bottle Nongfu Spring mineral water I'd bought myself. Even so, I was still parched. During those days I reckon I bought no fewer than thirty or forty bottles of drinks.
Anecdotes from Military Training
There were many interesting things during military training, like the lofty aspirations and self-criticisms the students revealed in their application letters. After the first round of investigating internal affairs, I followed the advice of the other two deputy instructors and felt I needed to lose my temper, so during the evening critique I "lost my temper". Perhaps there was a certain element of theatrical personality at play?
"Unifying our thinking" became code for going to chow - a tacit little secret among us deputy company commanders and deputy instructors. During this period we were supposed to eat at the third-floor teachers' canteen. Although the meal prices fluctuated strangely from time to time, the overall food quality was not bad.
One day there was an emergency-evacuation drill, requiring training officers to be in position on the dorm floors at 4:50, then around 5:00 to wake the students up, line them up at the door, and evacuate floor by floor from the top down. The night before, I just didn't go back to the dorm at all, and slept in the company headquarters. Sleeping there was of course very uncomfortable; I basically woke up once an hour. Looking back now, it was completely unnecessary - the fact that most people were able to be in position on time already showed I could have gone back to rest.
The way our company assembled was strangely funny. For instance, at 5:45 morning training was supposed to be assembled, but at 5:43 there'd be no one there, then at 5:44 everyone would suddenly be there all at once. The kids' timing skills were second to none!
When heading to the training ground there was a kid named Du Wenyuan who joked that he hadn't been picked for anything (formation, chorus, boxing). Later he signed up for a bunch of sentry duties and the like, and in the end he actually got a Second-Class Citation! A bit strange, hm. The citations were given out in order of overall ranking from the top down.
Company Headquarters Work
I have to say, even though Little Ding sprained her ankle, the artistic quality of her drafts was first-rate! Here is a divisional masterpiece:
There was a strange slacker named Wang Chenyu, who said he was dizzy and lay in his dorm, applied for half-training and didn't attend morning training or evening activities; later he just stayed at the company headquarters not knowing what he was doing, and even got caught playing video games. Just absurd - and his attitude when speaking was quite arrogant too.
The all-purpose handyman Ruan Hongning! Sometimes I also had Wang Zihan accompany me on dorm inspections (in charge of opening doors).
Sudden Incidents
One awkward incident: when Commissar Peng came to inspect the company headquarters, I was the only training officer present. Also there at the time were Wang Zihan, who had switched from full to half training, Ding Yuhan, with her sprained ankle, and Xiang Sicheng, doing normal company-headquarters work. I had only just started working at the headquarters and didn't even know their names, let alone their situations. Wang Zihan was sitting in the seat right by the entrance, not in training uniform, watching calculus videos. Commissar Peng patiently inquired about their situations, taught Little Ding how to walk on crutches and go up and down stairs, and even gave her some herbal ointment.
There was no rain during this round of military training, except for a brief shower the first time we went to the classroom in the evening. We collected four boxes of raincoats, but never used them again afterwards. Later we collected company-wide raincoats two more times, and the last batch went unused as well. The same went for the simulated fire-extinguishing with the Mechanical group: the training ground side suddenly said they needed masks. I was over at the headquarters, so I went to the campus supermarket to buy 180 masks and dispatched students to bring them over. But upon arrival, it turned out masks weren't necessary, and the activity had already ended. Those masks ended up never being used either.
The summary assembly was originally going to be on the morning of September 9th, but it was later moved to the evening of September 8th. Officially this was because the morning of the 9th was expected to be rainy (though in fact it didn't rain). On September 8th the entire morning was a full rehearsal, and the afternoon was performance-formation practice. The weather was alright - cloudy. We also received the notice on short notice. The originally planned September 8th evening farewell party for the instructors fell through too; at noon we just sent some platoon leaders to buy gifts and have a brief meeting at the instructors' dormitory.
Conclusion
You could call this a challenge. At first, faced with a barrage of incoming notices, I really was a bit at a loss, and my socially-anxious, withdrawn traits surfaced as well. I was also a bit overwhelmed handling all kinds of interpersonal relationships. The high-frequency, high-intensity processing of new things didn't suit me well, and from beginning to end I mainly followed the arrangements of the other four training officers. After getting used to it later on, things were okay.
The main contradiction, I think, lay in the fact that on the one hand I had been granted greater authority than before, and on the other hand I still wanted to follow others' arrangements. As a result, I became indecisive, wrestling over which option was better when "this works, that works too", insisting on telling others my decisions to lower the risk of acting on my own initiative - this is perhaps not a great trait.
It also exposed problems such as weak on-the-spot reactions, weak ability to quickly adapt to new things, and weak interpersonal communication skills. But the silver lining is that my self-awareness has become clearer: I'm still inclined to handle cold, unfeeling matters, and not good at dealing with ever-changing people.
But in the end, things turned out alright - we got three Red Flags for Internal Affairs, Ideology, and Marksmanship (though I felt we should have had the Formation Red Flag too!).
