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.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS