Young military drivers conquer the world's roof(2)

Yuan's mentor Zhang Longkan is proud of him, as he is a fast learner. "Yuan is my latest apprentice, and he completed his apprenticeship fastest."

LUCKY GENERATION

Young drivers like Yuan, and even his mentor Zhang who has been driver for nine years, are a lucky generation compared to their predecessors. Their life expectancy is much higher.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the completion of the highway. Though army drivers still have work with a lack of oxygen and the possibility of landslides, avalanches and mudslides, no death from a traffic accident has been reported in the past ten years, while thousands of military vehicles have plied the highway.

In the fifty years before, more than 600 drivers were killed doing their duty, roughly one each month. Thousands of soldiers were injured or incapacitated for life.

The cruelty of the Sichuan-Tibet is just a legend for young soldiers like Yuan and Huang, but Li Xiaogang, behind the wheel of army trucks for 17 years, has actually witnessed some of the dramatic changes.

Previously, only about 20 percent of the route was metalled. The rest was gravel or dirt, usually on a fairly steep slope. About 98 percent of the highway is tarred now.

"It used to take at least 40 days, sometimes two to three months, to make a round trip, trudging through from Chengdu to Lhasa. Nowadays, it only takes about 20 days," Li said. "The highway used to be so rough that I could blow 30 tires in a single mission."

Better equipment has also contributed to safer missions in the past ten years. At the very beginning, trucks used were the Dodge T234, seized during the War of Liberation (1946-1949) from defeated Kuomintang forces.They were replaced in 1970 by the Liberation CA10B in 1970, an entirely home-grown vehicle. Then came the Dongfeng EQ1092 in 1991, and the STR series, currently in service.

Veterans like Li and Zhang are valuable assets to the unit, helping train new drivers. With most drivers now born in the 1990s, Zhai Fengzhu, political commissar of the division, admits he has a new problem to deal with.

"The sources of recruits are more diverse now," Zhai said. There are college undergraduates and graduates, junior high and senior high school graduates, and those who joined the army after being migrant workers for several years.

"We've encountered new problems in terms of honing their ideology and inspiring them," he said. Compared with the veterans, people born in the 1990s are less obedient and ask many "whys".

"We have to talk to them honestly and move them with true feeling," said Zhai. "Once we explain clearly, the enthusiasm which grows could surmount that born out of mere obedience."