The Ministry of National Defense is next year to start trialing a new model of reservist training, which would last for three sessions before the ministry launches a review and assessment of the scheme, an official said yesterday.
Tao Cheng-juei (陶成濬), deputy director of the ministry’s mobilization management division, said that reservist training under the new model would be yearly, lasting 14 days.
The military expects to train 15,000 reservists per year, he added.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
Each session, which would take twice as long as the previous method, and count as two sessions for a reservist, he said.
Reservists who completed their mandatory service within eight years of the training session would be prioritized for recall, he said.
Under the new model, reservists would train with a variety of equipment for a total of 28 hours, up from 12 hours, Tao said.
They are expected to fire 35 rounds with a pistol, 45 with a carbine and 69 with a machine gun, and launch 34 shells with a mortar, up from 15, 21, 33 and 17 respectively, he said.
Combat training would increase to 56 hours, and include marching, camping, squad-based attack and defense simulations, constructing defensive fortifications, administering medicine on the battlefield, using terrain to obtain a tactical advantage, and dismantling fortifications to pass through them, he added.
The military would hold traditional reservist training sessions concurrently with trials of the new model, ministry spokesman Major General Shih Shun-wen (史順文) said.
Retired non-commissioned officers who have not attended four reservist training sessions within eight years of leaving active military duty — a benchmark for being excluded from reservist training — would be listed as eligible for another four years, he added.
To incentivize reservists to attend training sessions, the ministry forwarded to the Executive Yuan a special reservists recall bill.
According to the bill, reservists who voluntarily attend training sessions would be eligible for cash awards starting on their fifth session.
The Military Service Act (兵役法) caps reservist training at four sessions within eight years after completing mandatory service.
Employers of reservists who are recalled for training are obligated to pay reservists as normal, but can file for a tax deduction for 150 percent of the amount when filing their annual income tax, according to the draft act.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires