Military academies have reinstated basic parachute training for cadets, a practice which stopped 16 years ago, according to the Ministry of National Defense.
The reintroduction of the practice is aimed at developing diverse capabilities for the cadets, the ministry said. It denied, however, any other motives behind the move.
"It is just part of the military's effort to cultivate, among the cadets, highly competent troop leaders with diverse capabilities," a spokesman for the ministry said.
An army official revealed, however, that the renewal of parachute training for cadets is in large part based on recognition by military leaders that paratroopers will likely play an important role in the future defense of Taiwan.
Taiwan can be well-defended if the military has highly mobile troops that can be deployed to any part of the island in the shortest possible time, the army official said.
Most of the military academies have reinstated parachute drills for cadets, the ministry said. They include the army and air force academy well as the political warfare college. The naval academy is not on the list.
Cadets of the three major military academies are required to finish and pass parachute-training courses before graduation, the ministry said. The courses will begin during the summer sessions of the cadets' four years at the academy.
The courses will last for two months, during which each cadet will be required to parachute five times in order to qualify as a paratrooper.
Cadets of the political warfare college were the first to take parachute training courses this summer. All of the participating cadets passed the training, the ministry said.
A lieutenant colonel with the warfare college stated that the military academies stopped the training in 1975.
"The practice was stopped mainly because the military leadership at the time thought it was more important for cadets to learn basic combat tactics," the lieutenant colonel said.
"Now the situation has changed in favor of paratroopers. We are likely to have more and more paratroopers in the future so it is necessary to cultivate in advance a large number of officers with parachuting capabilities," he said.
In the past, there have been accidental deaths related to the military's parachute exercises. The ministry said now parachute drills are quite safe because the parachutes used in the exercises are more carefully maintained and checked prior to use.
Voicing skepticism over the military's claim of enhanced safety for trainee-paratroopers is Chen Yu-shu (陳玉樹), a former paratrooper and author as well as an editor with the Wings of China publication company.
Chen said that when he was in the service several years ago, the military offered NT$120,000 to the families of cadets who were killed as a result of parachuting exercises.
"The conditions do not seem to be getting any better," Chen said.
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