Border soldiers reveal their higher calling

Soldiers from the Tranglung border post on patrol on a glacier. In the 54 years since the establishment of the border guard, 31 soldiers have died at the mountain stations. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

Help in adversity

Some of the village children treated by the company's medical officers share the same name - Sangye Tsering, meaning "Revolutionary longevity" - in appreciation of the army's help.

Apart from providing regular physical checkups and medical services, the army helps the villagers to harvest barley in autumn, search for lost yaks in the winter snow and rain and provides assistance during earth tremors and heavy snowfalls.

The troops teach the children to read, write and do basic arithmetic, and also they demonstrate how to plant vegetables that were unknown to the semi-nomadic herders before 2007, when a soldier first succeeded in growing peppers and eggplants.

The first vegetables were grown in a flowerpot, but later the troops constructed half-submerged greenhouses near their barracks where they cultivate more than 20 types of vegetables, as well as strawberries, cherry tomatoes, watermelons and honeydew melons.

"Vegetables and fruits greatly diversify the sources of nutrition for the Tibetan people, who only ate yak meat and barley before," said Chimed, an official at the county government.

Konchok Lhawang, a Tibetan soldier in his early 20s who has signed on for five years, said: "

Chokyi and Lhakyi's visits really relieved our homesickness. The villagers' hospitality makes us feel as though Trang-lung is our second home."

The strong bond of brotherhood among the young men - most of whom are only children, born in the 1980s and 90s, and from outside Tibet - is a type of magic that makes the guard post more like home.