Vote of confidence for PLA marine corps (3)

The lion spirit

Wang said at least 50 percent of soldiers in his brigade were born in the 1990s.

"The thoughts of soldiers from the '90s generation are more active than ours, and their perspectives on a lot of issues are different from ours," Wang said, suggesting that young soldiers are also able to learn new skills more quickly than their predecessors.

"They may be less able than soldiers born in the 1970s or 1980s to withstand tough training and a bad environment, but after being with my brigade, they become strong enough to stand up to challenges and hardship."

Yu Huangwei, a publicity officer with the brigade, said: "The brigade has been promoting the 'lion spirit' among our officers and soldiers. We characterize the spirit in four key words: loyalty, solidarity, wittiness, valor."

He added: "We have a Lion Square and many lion sculptures in our barracks."

This spirit inspires soldiers to fight like lions on the training ground, he added.

Lai Yong, deputy head of the brigade, said, "All of my frogman colleagues can climb a 30-meter wall with all their weapons and equipment within two minutes. Carrying nearly 20 kg, we are still able to swim several kilometers underwater."

The brigade's frogmen are also capable of launching surprise assaults from the air. "We conduct nearly 20 parachute training missions in Hainan province every year," Lai said.

Many marines in the brigade have practiced kung fu, he said, adding that retired marines are in demand as recruits at local public security authorities and private security companies.

Zhang Yitao, part of the team of frogmen, said that when it comes to combat capability, individual or team, the brigade compares equally to its counterparts from around the world.

His comments were echoed by Feng Zijie, from one of the brigade's land battle battalions, who said the PLA marine corps needs to find a solution to problems in its collaboration with other military services in real combat.

In contrast to its US counterpart, it does not have its own aviation units and relies heavily on the PLA navy's air regiments in direct support of troops and airborne operations, military observers said.

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