"There are sadistic superiors who abuse their authority, make unreasonable demands, and mete out excessive punishment... Such punishment can be fatal, as in the case of Hung Chung-chiu, a corporal who died last week during solitary confinement three days before he was set to be discharged. Hung died of heatstroke after doing exercise — a form of punishment — apparently under the searing sun.Appalling. That quote isn't entirely clear, but presumably what happened was that Hung died indoors in solitary confinement subsequent to a break during which he was forced to do some kind of exercise under the sun. This is not to be laughed at. I'm much stronger and fitter than your average Army corporal in Taiwan, but even I take care not to get sunstroke; it will utterly wipe you out.
Read the rest of that article; apparently, the ostensible reason for Hung's punishment of three days solitary confinement was that he had brought a cellphone with a camera onto the base. As if a corporal with an i-phone was somehow a threat to national security. As the article predicts, the next step for the military is to quickly court-marshall somebody - anybody - so that the public can quickly forget about the case. You can add the implications of this and other such cases to the problems of reforming Taiwan's military.
Later...
It seems both the President and Defense Minister agree with me.
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