President Chen Shui-bian (
This year's Tunghsing No. 14 mobilization drill, which will take place at Taichung's Chenkungling base, will involve 2,200 reserves.
The reserves will form a local reserve brigade, one of six that the Reserves Command established at the beginning of the year.
The six brigades are manned by 61 officers and non-commissioned officers during peace time but become a combat brigade of 2,200-plus men in time of war.
The Tunghsing No. 14 drill is aimed at testing how quickly a reserve brigade can reach basic levels of combat readiness.
A general with the Reserves Command who declined to be identified said the reserve brigades are expected to take charge of second-line defense, leaving first-line defense to regular troops.
"In the Tunghsing No. 14 drill, the reserve brigade will be put to the test for the first time. We need to know whether the brigade can get necessary supplies, including weaponry and various sorts of equipment, from friendly forces within time," the general said.
"We also want to find out whether the brigade can successfully commandeer 24 items of war-time facilities from civilian companies," he said. He did not explain what the 24 items were.
The general said the pres-ident's review of the troops was only part of the training that reserves in the Tunghsing No. 14 drill would experience.
Some defense officials have criticized the drill as being "unrealistic," saying it is not easy to ask reserve troops to be dressed like soldiers, let alone to act like soldiers.
The result may be that the reserve brigade has to spend most of the drill retraining reserve troops how to stand to attention, a defense official said.
Training of reserve troops has been watered down in recent years because of a lack of personnel and resources.
Because of this, the Reserves Command established six reserve brigades to take over the responsibility for training reserves from the army. Nevertheless, several army brigades are still required to train reserves.
A decision on whether the Reserves Command should take sole responsibility for training reserves has yet to be made.
The Reserves Command is headed by Lieutenant General Chen Pan-chih (
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