Waiting for you in a faraway hometown
Military Room No. 34
Exclusive original first perspective
Walked out of Daliang Mountain and went to another mountain
At dusk, Shasha once again stood on the hillside of his hometown Zhaikou, and couldn't help humming the song his mother sang to him——
"I left my thoughts on the highest mountain, and the love of relatives is waiting for you in the distant hometown..."
Sip the sand at this time and feel happy.
After many years, he has become an officer of the Republic and once again returned to his hometown in the depths of Daliang Mountain.
In the eyes of the Yi folks, being a battalion commander's sand sip is undoubtedly returning home.
But at this moment, he is more like a homesick child.
Whenever I sing this song, Shaojia will remember the scene many years ago——
In 2007, Shazai was in his fifth year in the army.
In August of that year, his mother and his wife came to visit him for the first time in the army.
That was their first time out of the mountain.
They only knew that Sha Sha was serving as a soldier in the army, but they didn't know that he was a missile engineer and did the job of building positions.
At 4 in the morning, the train station was empty.
After running around for several days and nights, the mother and wife arrived at the work area where Shaqa was located.
The troop pick-up car was already waiting outside the station, but Shaojia was not in the car.
They didn't know that Shaojia was digging in the distance.
At dawn, the golden light pierced the night sky.
After completing the task, he sipped the sand and walked out of the tunnel work site, and happened to collide with his mother and wife who had just arrived in the camp.
His wife only looked at him, tears bursting into her eyes.
The mother resisted the tears.
Only then did Shaojia realize that he had been digging through the blasthole all night with a wind drill in his hand, "He was covered with dust, his face was covered with mud, only his eyes and teeth were white."
The sand sipped in the army actually looked like this!
The mother and wife's eyes were filled with distress.
Let the person he loves most see the scene that he shouldn't have seen, and Shaojia blames himself very much.
"Our family is poor or suffering, but the conditions here are not bad, and it won't make you suffer such hardship." For the first time, my mother shook Shazhao in the army.
Shaojia understood that her mother was expressing the unspoken words tactfully: "It's better to go home!"
"It's okay, I'm used to it." Shazai replied lightly.
At that time, without staying in the army for a few days, my mother could not bear the altitude sickness and went home early.
The train passed the rushing Yellow River, and my mother couldn't restrain the sadness in her heart.
Standing in front of the car window, she looked in the direction of her son and cried and sang her thoughts in Yi language——
"My boy, after so many mountains, so many rivers, I leave my thoughts on the highest mountain, and the love of relatives is waiting for you in the distant hometown..."
This song has been hummed in my heart over and over again in these years.
He said that it was by this longing for his loved ones that he could persist until now.
The recruits were in the next company, and Shaojia and his comrades were walking in a troop car.
He thought that he was finally going to see the world in the bustling big city.
I don't know how long it took, the car stopped.
Through the car window, he saw that outside was a group of people dressed as "migrant workers", covered in dust and dirt, squatting and beating.
After a while, someone greeted the recruits to get out of the car.
Shasha's heart suddenly refreshed.
It turned out that I was not a missile soldier, but a missile engineer!
At that moment, Shaojia had a huge psychological gap: Unexpectedly, he left Daliang Mountain and entered another mountain!
What made Shaojia persist was the entrustment of the villagers and the expectations of the parents.
In addition, he still has a dream: joining the party.
A person, as long as he has a dream, will support himself in insisting on something that cannot be persisted, and enduring something intolerable.
The construction tasks are arduous, and the work efficiency of Sand Gai as a recruit is very low. It is often that today's work has not been completed, and the next day will come again.
Shasha didn't want to fall behind, and hadn't left the construction site for a week.
When you are hungry, you will eat two bites at the construction site; when you are sleepy, you will take a nap against the rock.
One morning, sand was sipped on a steel mesh that was more than 7 meters high.
Crawling, exhausted, he almost fell asleep.
He didn't wake up until a hand fell from the mesh.
The last line of defense in his heart was about to collapse. He asked himself: How long can the power of dreams last?
How long will this day be?
Shasha sipped the report, asked for leave to go to the toilet-only this "reason" could give it a breath.
Accompanied by the moonlight, the sand climbed onto a large rock by the river.
As soon as he lay down, he saw the sky full of stars winking at him.
For a time, his father and fellow villagers eagerly exhorted him to see him off. The family's eyes were full of anticipation, and his dream of joining the party... scenes were shown in Shaojia's mind like a movie.
On the day he left his hometown, relatives and friends who lived on the top of the mountain came to see him off.
At that time, there was no road on the mountain. They walked dozens of kilometers across the mountains and sipped the sand on the train.
Thousands of exhortations, thousands of instructions, the expectations and tears of the relatives turned into one sentence: "When you arrive in the army, you must do well! Be sure to join the party and come back to grace our village."
Shasha sat up from the stone, patted the dust on his body, and returned to his post.
When there is no war, I am still at war
Persevere in a difficult place, there will be unexpected gains.
In the third year of enlisting in the army, Shazi and his comrades came to a plateau with an altitude of more than 3,500 meters.
This is Shaojia's first time on the plateau.
He was carrying a 15 kg oxygen cylinder, while he was breathing in oxygen while playing a pneumatic drill.
Once, Shaojia continued to work for more than 10 hours. Due to lack of oxygen, she fell from a height of several meters and fell into a pond.
Fortunately, nothing major.
Shazai got up, rested for 10 minutes, then got up and continued to work.
It was also this time that Shazi realized his wish to join the party.
The dream of life is thus realized!
Shasha hid in the warehouse crying with joy.
At that time, there was no phone installed in the house.
Shasha's parents ran to a neighbor's house and received a call from his son from the army: "I have joined the party."
The next day, my mother went to the stockade and said from door to door: "My son, he joined the party at the age of 20!"
Later, Shaojia lived up to expectations and was admitted to the military academy and became an officer.
The whole village is proud of Shasha.
Shaojia always felt that if it wasn't for coming to the army, these lucky things would not belong to him.
"I am a child cultivated by the party and the army, and this kindness cannot be forgotten." He said.
On that day, Shasha accepted the task of urgently removing the formwork and squeezed into a narrow space of 60 cm square.
Unexpectedly, a loose template on the side wall suddenly fell off and hit his right foot heavily.
The pain is biting.
Because he didn't want to drag the company back, Shaojia insisted on working for 15 days.
Later, his toes became inflamed and festered, and the loose camouflage uniforms could no longer cover them.
After learning about the situation, the instructor Ye Guoying hurriedly sipped the sand to the local people's hospital.
After the filming, the doctor told him that he had broken 3 toes, missed the best treatment time, and may need toe amputated.
"After the toe is cut, will the army still want me?" Shazai suddenly became anxious - originally, his family expected him to come to the army to make contributions; now, he is going to be disabled.
Hu Weiping, the then political commissar, told the doctor categorically: "No matter what you think of, you must keep the sandy feet!"
Back at the work area, the doctor released all the blood on the sand and squatted feet and removed the carrion between the bones.
Every time the dressing was changed, the painful sand sipped either on the pillow or the wooden stick. He bit the stick several times.
After more than two months of "scraping and healing", the sandy squat injury gradually improved and saved his right foot.
When he walked into the position again, his comrades exclaimed: "Shaji is simply the "iron man" of the position!"
"Iron Man" also has times of fear.
That year, the troops were carrying out blasting operations in the work area, and a huge blackboard the size of a blackboard suddenly fell from the vault, smashing comrade Yan Weiheng into a puddle.
The sand squatted down, desperately peeling away the gravel.
Yan Weiheng was taken to the hospital and suffered 12 fractures, but fortunately he saved his life.
Back to the construction site, sipping the sand all the way, my legs kept shaking.
This dangerous situation made Shaojia truly realize the profound meaning of "a position is a battlefield, and construction is a war".
It was also this incident that made him understand that life safety is above all else.
Underground construction is a recognized high-risk industry.
Risks are often uncontrollable.
The missiles are not waiting for positions.
No matter how hard work and no matter how dangerous it is, someone must do it.
Shaojia said, "I must go first."
After serving as a company commander, Shaojia's most important concern was safety.
In his view, missile engineers do not necessarily have to have much success, and "how comrades come and go" is also a success.
"Safety issues will never be tolerated!" During work, Shasha sometimes has a "violent" temper.
Because of this, he took his comrades to pass with death many times.
Once, sand was sipped to the blasting operation surface to check the situation.
Attentively, he heard the sound of dripping water on the vault, but after repeated inspections, no dripping was found.
Walking out of the hole quickly, he still felt uneasy, then turned back, and again checked the vault with a bright flashlight.
Suddenly, he found a finger-wide crack in the corner, murky water was coming out.
"Quick retreat!" The new comrade-in-arms tripped over the stone, and Sand Gai dragged them to the entrance of the cave.
Less than 30 meters away, they heard a loud noise behind them, and the rocks covered with mud and sand fell from the vault and instantly filled the working surface.
Shaojia hugged her comrades tightly...
In recent years, what Shaojia is most proud of is not being a military officer or how much honor he has won, but the soldiers he has brought, "How did my parents send it to them? The parents sent it back."
In her notebook, Shaojia wrote such a poem: "A time without war/I'm still in war/years drenched in blood and sweat/smoke and smoke/sleeping in the air/iron horse ice river/all for a solemn promise..."
On days without sunshine, be each other’s sun
In the army, the comrades-in-arms kindly called Shazi "Brother Xiazi", and everyone got along well.
Perhaps, you can't imagine that when Shazai first came to the army, he couldn't even speak Chinese.
Growing up in the sand in the Yi District of Shenshan since I was a child, I don't know how to use chopsticks because of my low level of Chinese.
As soon as he spoke, someone imitated his strange voice.
The comrades in arms said with a smile that Shazi sang, "Wow, I'm talking, eating with my hands".
Gradually, Shasha became inferior and withdrawn, and she often looked at the distant mountains in a daze.
Once, instructor Ye Guoying happened to meet Shaojia.
The instructor arranged for him to speak to a monitor. The content was actually very simple-let the whole class move the construction materials from B to A.
Seeing the Fang Gang piled up in front of him, Shao squatted and hesitated again and again, without telling the monitor.
Because he was afraid that his accent would be laughed at again.
Shasha took off his clothes and put them on his shoulders, and started to move the pile of square steel by himself.
A 6-meter-long square steel, one piece weighs a hundred catties.
From point B to point A, it is several hundred meters.
One, two... After moving more than 50 square steels, it was getting late.
A layer of skin fell from the sand on his shoulders, and the clothes and blood stuck together.
After learning about this situation, the instructor both felt distressed and blamed himself.
He bought a dictionary for every Yi soldier and taught them Chinese whenever he had time.
The instructor also ordered that all officers and soldiers of the company are no longer allowed to joke with the Mandarin of ethnic minority comrades.
Later, the comrades-in-arms worked while talking to Shasha.
In less than half a year, Shaojia became fluent in Mandarin and blended with his comrades.
People who have experienced the cold winter know the warmth of the sun better.
After enduring great loss and overcoming many setbacks, Shazi Gu secretly made up his mind: We must persevere in the army.
He will never forget that it was the help of his comrades and the training of the troops that gave him the current results.
The military experience of the Tibetan college student soldier Duo Deng is quite similar to that of Shaojia.
When Duo Deng was a recruit, Shaojia once went to the recruit camp to share his growth experience.
Seeing the dark-skinned, hoarse-voiced, and ethnic minority spokesman Shaying in front of him, Duo Deng seemed to see his relatives.
Speaking of enthusiasm, Shaza opened her clothes, and the scars on her arms and feet were faintly visible.
"These are the'military medals' I set on the construction site." Shasha's eyes lit up when she said this.
Duo Deng knows that his former cowherd baby can also change his destiny through hard work just like the sand sip.
Soon, Shaojia came to Duo Deng's company again to cheer for him: "Don't give up lightly, time can change everything."
Like a ray of light into the corner, Duoden found his "sun" and tried to catch up.
In life, Shaojia also has his own "sun"-his wife Mo Xiaomei.
The two have been a baby boy since childhood.
Over the years, Shazixia has followed the troops from south to north, and has been fighting on the front line of national defense engineering.
The husband and wife have been separated for many years. This kind and simple Yi woman supports the whole family alone.
Being a soldier is Shasha's dream.
And Mo Xiaomei's dream is to support Shazi to fulfill his dream and become his "reliance".
Is it worth marrying a soldier like Shaojia?
The answer was already in her mind.
The children of the Yi nationality are born with dark skin.
But when Shazai went home from visiting relatives these days, her mother was always nagging: "Why are you so white now? Not like my son."
Once, Mo Xiaomei listened to the sand and said that Wang Xiaolong, a college student soldier, drew a sun hanging on the bedside, and beside it was written a poem: "Draw a sun to hang my heart, and take a look at it when you have time. The cave is divided into three parts. I don’t know day and night, and I don’t know if the sun is in the east or west."
Because of working in the cave all year round, sunshine is a luxury for missile engineers.
After a while, Wang Xiaolong received a parcel with a flag made of red, green, and blue silk, with a red sun embroidered in the middle.
This "sun" was sent by his sister-in-law Mo Xiaomei.
A year later, Wang Xiaolong was admitted to the military academy.
When bidding farewell, he said emotionally: "After graduation, I will go back to Dashan." Because there is the warmth he can't give up.
We shed tears and sweat together, we were hurt together, and we passed the death hand in hand. Not everyone can have this kind of feeling, and everyone can give up.
Shaojia always felt that he was "not good enough" for his comrades-"At work, I was too'ruthless' with them... to ensure their safety is my most important responsibility."
Whenever sending the veterans away, Shaojia held back tears.
Seeing the veteran salute to him, Shaojia always remembered the scene when he sent the old squad leader Cheng Pengfei away—
The separation was imminent, the old squad leader kept explaining his work, and asked Shazi to sing big and small things.
Usually, no matter how much bitter the sand eats, it rarely cries.
But at this moment, he was crying like a child.
The shoulder that you can rely on is about to leave.
The rain was pattering underground, and the train started, carrying the veterans to the distance.
Shasha sipped his eyes at the fading train again.
Whether it is the old squad leader who has brought her, or every soldier she has brought, Shaojia cares about everyone.
He always thinks about "what else can be done for them".
In 2018, Shaojia was elected as a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress.
He wanted to speak up for the group of missile engineers behind him and reflect the voice of the grassroots comrades.
Shaojia's proposal was to extend the service life of the fourth-level sergeant major.
Because he can never forget the words left by the old squad leader Cheng Pengfei when he left the team: "This military uniform, I have worn for 16 years, and it has almost become the skin on my body. Remove the taste of the skin, it hurts!"
"As soon as we saw Battalion Chief Sha, we felt very relieved." The officers and soldiers in the camp often said this.
Once, the sand has been warmed and treated well; now, the sand has become the sun for more people-warming and illuminating everyone around you.
(We received great help and support from Zhang Jialu, Wei Pengyuan, Fang Lei, Wei Yulin, etc. in the interview, thanks here.)
Li Yiye