By studying history, we gain clarity, build confidence, cultivate virtue, and put knowledge into practice. Standing at the historical juncture of the “Two Centenaries,” we look back on our journey of struggle past and gaze forward toward the path of vigorous advancement ahead.

Tongfang Law Firm provides all its lawyers with learning opportunities in the form of micro-party classes, thereby enhancing their ideological and political awareness as well as their spirit of learning and inquiry. By establishing a long-term educational mechanism, the firm has created a new platform for self-education and self-improvement.

Having laid down their military uniforms, they remain true to their military spirit, taking root in various industries and faithfully fulfilling their duties.

Starting anew, they remain true to their original selves and never forget their original aspirations as they write a new chapter of glory.

Recently, the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, and the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission jointly released the exemplary deeds of the “Most Beautiful Veteran Soldiers” for 2023.

One touching story after another tells of the veterans’ unwavering aspirations and their timeless devotion.

The “military flavor” remains undiminished; the spirit of the military is as strong as steel.

“Back when I was in the military, I wasn’t even afraid of death—this time, I absolutely can’t become a deserter!” This is a phrase often uttered by the Xinjiang Qiemo County Veteran Sand Control Team, composed of nine retired veterans, whenever they encounter difficulties.

Facing the endless stretches of yellow sand, the challenges were all too obvious. In extreme weather conditions, hundreds of acres of saplings were uprooted overnight. Despite repeated setbacks, the team members kept persevering, diligently honing their skills and striving to improve the survival rate of the saplings. Today, tens of thousands of acres of yellow sand have been transformed into lush oases, boosting employment and income for over 10,000 local residents.

From olive green to police blue, safeguarding the nation’s borders has remained An Xiaohua’s unwavering goal as the team leader of the Enforcement and Investigation Team at the Baoshan Border Management Detachment in Yunnan Province.

On the battlefield against drug trafficking, An Xiaohua has participated in more than 20 special operations, dismantled six drug trafficking rings, apprehended over 350 criminal suspects, and seized 1.5 tons of various types of drugs. Behind these impressive figures lie countless undercover operations, relentless manhunts, and life-or-death confrontations.

The “battlefield” of Ge Jun, a rural mail carrier at the Golmud Branch of China Post Group Co., Ltd., is a postal route known as the “Zone of Life’s Forbidden Territory.”

Crossing half of the uninhabited Coco Xili region and climbing a hundred-meter-high “heavenly ladder” in the frigid plateau climate, where temperatures plummet below minus ten degrees Celsius—this postal route connecting Golmud City and Tanggula Mountain Town has been traveled for ten years by Ge Jun, alone and on his own vehicle, all to deliver letters and urgently needed daily supplies to the local military personnel and residents.

Stick to your post, and let even the most ordinary job shine with extraordinary brilliance.

Holding onto the fecal pipe and pumping out debris and fecal sludge from different manholes—this is part of the daily routine for Li Meng, the team leader of the March 8th Women’s Fecal Pumping Team at the Dongcheng District Sanitation Center in Beijing, led by Shi Chuanxiang.

After retiring in December 2009, Li Meng began working at this sanitation center. When the fecal pipes are full, they can weigh dozens of kilograms—and sometimes you even have to shake them back and forth. If a pipe gets clogged, you’ve got to use your hands to scoop out the debris. Often, Li Meng is so exhausted that he can hardly lift his arms—but he’s never once complained. “Once you take on this job, you’ve got to put your heart into it and do it well,” he says with simple yet powerful words.

Living by the wind and sailing through the waves, drifting on the water and fishing from boats—Zhou Gonghu, the team leader of the clean-up crew in the Three Gorges Reservoir area of Zigui County, Hubei Province, has been sticking to this lifestyle for over a decade.

Under the scorching sun, the temperature on deck often soars to as high as 60 or 70 degrees Celsius—enough to fry an egg. The garbage and debris pulled from the water can easily weigh dozens of pounds, and the retrieval operations must be repeated thousands of times each day. As a result, their clothes are constantly strained to the point of tearing. Yet, for the sake of safeguarding “clear waters flowing eastward,” Zhou Gonghu willingly endures all these hardships.

Once you join the military, you carry the spirit of a soldier for life.

“Obey orders and remain loyal to your duty.” Liu Yajun, a forest ranger at Panggu Forest Farm of the Tahe Forestry Bureau in the Daxing'anling region of Heilongjiang Province, has always kept this oath he took upon enlisting firmly in his heart.

To prevent illegal logging, he traversed every hilltop and every patch of forest within the protected area. To guard against forest fires, whenever the wind reached Force 3 or higher, he never lit a fire—when thirsty, he drank raw water; when hungry, he ate cold rice; and when cold, he wrapped himself tightly in his cotton quilt. After more than 20 years of unwavering dedication, Liu Yajun has achieved “threefold growth” in the protected area: increased forest area, enhanced forest stock volume, and higher forest coverage rate.

Serving the People: A Shining Original Aspiration

A volunteer service during an earthquake relief effort forged an unbreakable bond between Zou Ling, a retired military veteran from Tianjin, and the villagers of Yuzixi Village in Yingxiu Town, Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province.

To help the elderly villagers receive medical treatment, he spent nearly one million yuan just on medical expenses; to address the issue of food for the elderly and their children, he opened a caring canteen; and to help his fellow villagers become prosperous, he donated funds to build a water plant and develop rural tourism.

In April 2020, Zou Ling transferred his household registration to Yingxiu and became the Party branch secretary and village committee director of Yuzixi Village. Under his leadership, the villagers’ per capita income has significantly increased.

Because of heartfelt dedication and genuine affection, even a foreign land can feel like home.

Having been rooted in the grassroots for over 20 years, Chen Xiaopan, a member of the Party Committee and resident police officer at the Public Security Bureau of Linying County, Henan Province, has handled more than 7,000 emergency calls and requests for assistance. Every time he receives a call from villagers in his jurisdiction—no matter how late at night or whether it’s stormy or snowy—he always rushes to their aid as quickly as possible. “If you’re in trouble, just find Xiaopan; once you find Xiaopan, no problem is too big” has become a common saying among local residents.

“To serve the people”—once you make that vow, it becomes your whole life; once you start putting it into action, it becomes your entire existence.

In 1982, Tao Yijia, a retired soldier working at Shanghai’s No. 1 Pharmacy, launched the first mobile service vehicle on Nanjing Road, offering free services such as blood-pressure checks to passersby. The lively scenes of people lining up excitedly gave Tao Yijia the motivation to keep going. Since then, every 20th of the month, the mobile service vehicle has always made its scheduled appearance.

Today, the once-small vehicle has been transformed into a “Lei Feng-style Service Station for the People.” More than 50 organizations from both military and civilian sectors are participating, offering a wide range of services including haircuts and legal consultations.

After retiring from his position as a professor at Hunan University of Science and Technology in 2004, Xia Zhaoyan, who was nearing the age of seventy, returned to his hometown. Despite his advanced age and health issues, Xia Zhaoyan and his wife pooled their savings to lead the villagers in building a cultural activity center, establishing a senior citizens’ school and a holiday school for children, thereby providing cultural support for the development of their hometown.

Giving back to his hometown is also the goal of Liu Shanguo, a retired veteran and Chairman of Hebei Tongfu Group Co., Ltd. He spearheaded the establishment of a joint venture between Tongfu Group and the Village Committee of Tayuanzhuang Village in Zhengding County, aiming to build the Tayuanzhuang Tongfu Rural Revitalization Demonstration Park. Since the project’s launch, it has welcomed over 2 million visitors annually, provided employment for more than 10,000 local villagers, and increased their average monthly income by approximately 1,000 yuan per person.

Having grown from a retired military officer into an entrepreneur, Zata, vice president of the Charity Association of Shigatse City in the Tibet Autonomous Region, never forgets the Party’s kindness and his military spirit. He personally raised 9.5 million yuan to build a 50,000-cubic-meter reservoir, completely resolving the drinking water and irrigation problems for villagers in two administrative villages. He also funded the establishment of a vocational and technical school, waiving tuition, fees, and room-and-board expenses for disadvantaged people. To date, the school has trained over 2,500 artisans specializing in painting, embroidery, woodcarving, and woodcraft, making significant contributions to the preservation and promotion of traditional ethnic handicrafts.

To safely deliver passengers to their destinations and, even more importantly, to spread warmth to more people—this is the career goal of Yin Qilong, a Chongqing taxi driver and veteran.

In his daily work, whenever he sees elderly passengers with mobility issues, he proactively helps them get on and off the vehicle. When he encounters passengers who seem upset or distressed, he offers sincere comfort and patiently listens to their concerns. Over the past nearly 20 years in the profession, having driven more than 1 million kilometers and served over 200,000 passengers, Yin Qilong has achieved zero traffic violations, zero complaints, and zero accidents.

Bravely Scaling New Heights, Writing a New Chapter

Wang Qi, a retired military cadre at the Xi'an Bridge Outpatient Rest Home for Retired Military Cadres in Changchun City, Jilin Province, lost his sight in both eyes due to war injuries—but he has faced life’s challenges with the unyielding spirit of a soldier.

Starting from scratch, he trained to become a military doctor, relieving pain and suffering for tens of thousands of officers, soldiers, and civilians. He has also published more than ten academic papers in leading journals and authored medical works in Braille.

After retiring, Wang Qi continued to strive relentlessly. He actively devoted himself to public welfare initiatives aimed at caring for the blind, providing free massage services to lonely and elderly individuals, and visiting schools on numerous occasions to promote awareness about eye health.

Wherever there are new positions, there will be new battle stations—and wherever there are new battle stations, new glories will be written.

After leaving the military, Wen Wenxi became deeply connected with tea. Through diligent study and meticulous research, he transformed himself from a complete novice into a master tea maker and now serves as the director of the Anxi Tieguanyin Tea-Making Skills Inheritance Workshop in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province. He also actively conducts technical training, innovates tea-making equipment, and helps tea farmers achieve prosperity.

Life in the military has given Ye Haihui, a physical education teacher at Haidu Primary School in Kanmen, Yuhuan City, Zhejiang Province, a deep understanding of the importance of physical exercise.

Ye Haihui has created more than 2,000 sports games and produced over 4,200 pieces of sports equipment in more than 80 different types. Among these, eight pieces of equipment have been granted national utility model patents. Thanks to his efforts, physical education classes have become wonderfully engaging and full of laughter and joy for the children.

Dressed in military uniform, they are the backbone of their units; away from the barracks, they are industry leaders.

The final assembly process of the Shenzhou spacecraft demands extremely high precision.

Inside the Shenzhou spacecraft’s return capsule—where the effective operational area is less than 0.7 square meters, there are only four stepping points, and pipes and cables are intricately intertwined—Sun Zhanhai, a senior technician from the Tianjin Space Station Final Assembly Team of the General Assembly and Environmental Engineering Department at the Fifth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, has spent decades flawlessly completing the final assembly of more than 12,000 pieces of equipment across over 10 spacecraft, thus helping China’s aerospace program pursue its dreams of exploring the stars and the seas.

Also a master craftsman of a major country, Zai Hongbin, a senior technician at the Jincheng Power Supply Company of State Grid Shanxi Province Electric Power Company, works at transmission towers towering dozens of meters high.

Having spent 30 years working on the front lines of transmission line operation and maintenance, Zai Hongbin has climbed more than 3,000 transmission towers with his bare hands and walked tens of thousands of kilometers along transmission lines. To leverage technological innovation in ensuring the efficient and safe operation of transmission lines, Zai Hongbin taught himself knowledge in fields such as mechanical engineering and civil engineering, poring over specialized books and academic papers. The innovative achievements he led have even won international awards.

From military instructor to physical oceanographer, Shang Xiaodong, a second-level researcher at the South China Sea Institute of Oceanography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has continually challenged himself. He led the establishment of China’s first multidisciplinary deep-sea observation system and achieved significant scientific breakthroughs. The series of marine observation devices developed by his team have filled numerous gaps both domestically and internationally.

Today, Shang Xiaodong, who has long since reached retirement age, still insists on staying at the forefront of scientific research—simply because “the ocean is endless, and scientific research will never run out.”