Marking an expansion in US military relations with Taiwan, nine of the 39 Taiwanese cadets studying at US military academies will graduate this month.
Meanwhile, a cadet named Lin Ching-Hong (
The representative office said Lin wanted to become a fighter pilot as soon as possible.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HSIUNG MING-CHEUNG
Three Taiwanese cadets at Virginia Military Institute, another three at Citadel Military College, two at Norwich University and one at the US Naval Academy would receive their diplomas this month, the representative office said.
The cadets would then return home and be commissioned, the office added.
According to a report in the Chinese language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times), a cadet by the name of King Han-lung (
"I also appreciated the friendships I made with my colleagues. The academy taught us to always help others and to never give up on your colleagues," King said.
The representative office said that there are 39 Taiwanese studying at prestigious US military academies, including three studying at the Military Academy at West Point, three at the US Naval Academy, two at the US Air Force Academy, 12 at Virginia Military Institute, 12 at Citadel Military College and seven at Norwich University.
Next year, the Military Academy's Hung Wan-ting (
Hung, one of the most diminutive cadets at West Point, has told reporters that it has been a tough experience.
"Although it is extremely hard, I never cry," she said.
"Taiwanese youth are too relaxed," she added. "It would be hard for them to imagine that my US colleagues are sent to Iraq immediately after graduating."
West Point began to recruit foreign students from Asia in 2000 through US liaison offices abroad. The American Institute in Taiwan has conducted a series of recruitment tests since then.
Lee Wu-ling (
Meanwhile, the Naval Academy's Yu Chang-jung (余長蓉), the first Taiwanese woman to study at the US Naval Academy, is also expected to receive her diploma next year.
According to a report form the Central News Agency, First Lieutenant Shiung Ming-rung (熊明榮) completed a nine-week course at the Ranger School in Georgia this month, becoming the only Taiwanese soldier to receive a Ranger's shoulder patch in the last five years.
Hsiung told the agency that of the 373 personnel taking the course with him, just one third were able to finish it.
He said the Ranger course was designed to train special forces to be able to achieve a difficult military goal in the worst environment.
"I slept for between zero and four hours a night for many days in a row," Hsiung said.
"I had to carry a backpack weighing around 40kg while completing missions," he said.
Hsiung said that whenever he found himself wondering whether he could continue, he told himself that he would think about it after the next day's training.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater