The armed forces must do more to address low retention rates among elite officers who received training at foreign military academies, the Control Yuan said in a news release yesterday.
The Ministry of National Defense has programs to select top-performing cadets to study at prestigious foreign military academies to learn about military trends and enhance military ties with partners.
However, most Western-trained officers have retired from the military after completing their required 10 years of service, the ministry said.
Photo: Aaron Tu, Taipei Times
The programs have not only failed to achieve their goal, but also resulted in the additional loss of talented personnel to early retirement, the Control Yuan said.
The ministry in December last year said that Taiwan’s first West Point-trained officer, Colonel Hung Wan-ting (洪琬婷), had opted for early retirement.
In February, Control Yuan members Pu Chung-cheng (浦忠成), Lin Wen-cheng (林文程) and Lai Ting-ming (賴鼎銘) launched a probe into the matter, with a report saying that institutional flaws impeded the professional development of officers from US military academies.
The retention rate of officers who attended foreign military academies has declined in the past few years, with the army struggling more than the air force or the navy, the Control Yuan said.
The ministry should review its policies and propose solutions to ensure that study abroad programs — which cost a lot — have the desired effect, it said.
The military should seek exchange programs with the military academies of “Five Eyes” members, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian nations, instead of being limited to the US and other partners in the Americas, the Control Yuan said.
The probe’s findings were approved by the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee and on Thursday last week filed for the ministry’s consideration, it said.
Taiwanese officers who received training at US military academies on average served 14.3 years in the military, including of their four years of education, the ministry told the legislature in a report late last year.
The report said that 82.5 percent of retired military personnel left the service by choice, 15 percent retired for health reasons and 2.5 percent were involuntarily discharged, it said.
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