Eight servicemen lost their lives on Tuesday afternoon after the UH-1H helicopter they were aboard hit a police radio transmission tower in Kaohsiung County's Chishan Township (
The deceased officers were from an army airborne cavalry brigade, one of the country's most elite military units. Among the eight were two lieutenant colonels and the head of Airborne Cavalry Brigade 601, who was tipped for promotion to the rank of major general in the near future.
While the cause of the crash is unclear, some have suggested that poor visibility brought about by bad weather might have been the cause. Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (
As the nation mourned the loss of some of the country's elite military personnel, legislators were quick to play the blame game, with the pan-greens saying the pan-blues' blocking of the arms budget bills had a direct bearing on Tuesday's accident. The pan-blues, on the other hand, slammed the pan-greens for being so busy trying to please the US that they had failed to attend to the need for equipment upgrades outside of the three major weapon systems offered by the US.
If bickering and blaming could solve the issue, we would not mind. But sadly, that is not the case.
Rather than engaging in a war of words, for once legislators should ignore their political affiliations and attend to the real issue at hand with logic and tact.
How many lives need to be sacrificed in accidents like this before they come to their senses and understand that human life and national security are no joke? They must ditch their partisan theatrics and assess the issues at hand for what they are.
If a lesson can be learned from Tuesday's tragedy, it is that now is the time for the ministry to come up with an inventory of all outdated equipment and for legislators, across party lines, to give priority to the issues that impact on the lives of servicemen and servicewomen every day.
Training missions are part of the military's job in their brief to protect the people of Taiwan. National defense is a necessarily risk-laden business. The best way of protecting the lives of our service personnel and the effectiveness of our national defense is to minimize the inherent risks.
Providing up-to-date, state-of-the art equipment and implementing military management and training regimes that are the best available requires investment, and possibly, the recruitment of the expertise required.
We urge lawmakers to pass the military budget bills currently stalled in the legislature, and to include within them the budget required to provide a safer and more efficient working environment for the nation's military personnel.
As has often been said, the first duty of government should be the security of the nation and its citizens. Taiwanese deserve better.
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