The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday started accepting applications from those who wish to become the country's first volunteer servicemen in nearly four decades.
On the first day of application, the ministry's manpower recruitment center was flooded with phone calls asking about the volunteer program. The application period will last until April 11.
The center declined to reveal, however, how many applications it has received.
An official with the center said the exact figure would not be available until the end of the application process. "It is not suitable to provide any statistics at the moment," the official said.
The official noted that the center has received a lot of phone calls asking for information about the volunteer program, but that most of the calls are from parents of youths qualified to apply to join.
"These parents ask on behalf of their sons. Most of them ask via the phone. The rest of them visit out offices around the country to make the inquiries," the official said.
The official's words suggest that many prospective applicants might still be undecided, waiting for opinions from their parents. Applicants who are most likely to qualify for the volunteer program are between the ages of 19 and 23.
The ministry will recruit a total of 647 volunteers for the three branches of the services. The volunteer soldier program is to be launched on an experimental basis for the first year this year, but will become a regular practice if the experiment goes well.
For the first year, the volunteer program covers only three battalions, which include a missile battalion of the army, an infantry battalion of the marine corps, and a repair and maintenance group of the air force.
The starting salary for a volunteer is around NT$27,000 per month.
The army offers the possibility of earning more money. A volunteer in the army's missile battalion can earn an extra NT$10,000 per month if he is deployed to an offshore island.
The extra pay is for any service member who is stationed on islands such as Kinmen and Matsu.
The ministry also offers another incentive to young men to become volunteers. It is an NT$200,000 retirement fund given to a volunteer soldier who has served out his three-year term. In total, a young man can earn more than NT$1 million tax free by joining in the volunteer program.
The military launched the recruitment drive on March 1.
The recruits will be the first volunteers since 1956, when the compulsory military service system was launched. The program marks the greatest change to that conscription system in four decades.
The experimental program will become the basis for the ministry to raise the ratio of volunteers at all levels -- troops, non-commissioned officers and officers. The objective is to create a military that is 60 percent volunteer and 40 percent conscript. The ratio of volunteers to conscripts is around 1 to 3.
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