A young soldier’s suicide reveals the disastrous logistics of an undersupplied army.
Foreign Policy
Date: August 20, 2020
By: Paul Huang

A U.S.-made F-16V releases flares during the annual Han Kuang military drills in Taichung, Taiwan, on July 16. The five-day drills aimed to test how the armed forces would repel an invasion from China, which has vowed to bring Taiwan back into the fold—by force if necessary. SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images
Huang Zhi-jie was a 30-year-old lieutenant in the Taiwanese army. Initially serving in the airborne troops as an enlisted soldier, Huang was so committed that he requested officer training—normally considered more work for little reward—and was later commissioned as a lieutenant in charge of a maintenance depot of the 269th Mechanized Infantry Brigade. Huang was supposed to be the model soldier of which Taiwan desperately wanted more: a young, college-educated volunteer who chose to serve the country out of his own volition, at a time when the military was still facing difficult transition from conscription to an all-volunteer military.
But on the night of April 16, Huang hung himself on a dark staircase by his base’s mess hall. Initially his death was not even reported in the Taiwanese media, until Huang’s mother took to Facebook in a long open letter appealing to President Tsai Ing-wen for an investigation.
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