"Air force pilots owe their families too much to begin with!" Lt. Col. Hsu Teh-ying, who was nearly killed in a midair collision, has particularly strong feelings about the subject.

Besides a lack of care and attention that comes from being wrapped up in their duties, air force pilots find that what their families suffer from most is fear and anxiety. If they should happen to lose their lives in the course of service, how can the family carry on? "It's really brutal," Hsu asseverates.

Poor comparability: When an air force family suddenly loses a loved one in the course of service and is bewildered and anxious about the future, they often lament how unreasonable the compensation they receive is. But the regulations are complicated, and if asked to specify just what parts they mean, they often have a hard time answering. All they can do is compare their plight with the treatment afforded to the bereaved families of other public servants.

The most obvious discrepancy is that the consolation payment to families for pilots who have lost their lives for their country is not as high as that for police officers killed in the line of duty.

The family of Col. Wu Ko-chen, for instance, who was killed on July 12 last year while test-flying the Indigenous Defense Fighter (he was posthumously promoted to lieutenant general) received NT$2.6 million (about US$100,000) in compensation. Yet that of police officer Li Fu-hsing, who was shot and killed while capturing a major criminal earlier this year, not only received the same figure. They also received NT$3 million from the National Police Administration, NT$2 million because he had perished in the line of duty and NT$1 million more from the Taipei Municipal Police Compensation Fund for Death or Injury--NI$6 million more than that given to Col. Wu's family.

Besides one-time compensation, the families of police officers killed in the line of duty continue to receive the officers' regular pay for the next 20 years. But the military distinguishes between death in combat, where the pay continues for 20 years, and death in regular service, where it stops after 15.

Falling further and further behind: When it comes to that, some people say that an air force pilot earns much more than a police officer: about NT$60,000 a month for a first lieutenant compared with about NT$30,000 for a police officer. But air force families point out that if the families of slain police officers deposit the one-time compensation payment they receive in a savings account and let it accrue interest, the total monthly income they receive not only exceeds that of a pilot but continues indefinitely, without any termination date.

Besides the compensation payments stipulated by law, police officers who lose their lives to uphold the law are often a focus of substantial news media coverage, which brings their families donations from sympathetic private benefactors, but pilot accidents receive relatively limited attention from the public.

Comparing the two situations, it's understandable why bereaved air force families feel unfairly treated. What's more, a large portion of their monthly payments isn't adjusted according to the consumer price index, becoming a major cause of hardship to families in the long run.

Most people have the impression that air force officers are paid quite well. That's because they receive supplements for flying hours on top of their basic salaries. But under the current compensation system, the basic salary portion is adjusted according to the government pay scale while the supplement portion remains fixed.

Lt. Col. Wu Fu-ching, for example, lost his life in 1980 flying an F-5A fighter. The basic salary portion of the pension his family receives has been adjusted from NT$8,000 to more than NT$20,000, but the flight supplement remains at NT$6,000, for a total of some NT$30,000 or so, just half of what a lieutenant colonel currently earns. Families that have lost a head of household and have to rely on the pension for support can only sigh helplessly as commodity prices climb higher and higher.

Why the difference in years? Tu Hsi-mei, the widow of Major Wu Tsai-hsi, who was killed in a U-2 reconnaissance plane when returning from a mission over the mainland in 1966, points out that when her husband's pension ran out two years ago it totaled only NT$20,000 or so a month. With a child to raise all on her own, if it weren't for the small business she runs with the help of her parents, "I couldn't make it."

Since most of the pilots are relatively young when they are struck down by fate, it's worth looking more closely at the rules on pension time limits.

When Huang Chi-hsien was killed on a training flight in 1970, his wife, Lin Su-miao, was bearing his child. Fifteen years later, when the pension ran out, her son was in his teens, just the time when child-rearing expenses start to increase. Once the pension, which wasn't very much to begin with, stopped coming in, they were faced with numerous hardships and difficulties. With the help of her parents, Lin Su-miao is just trying to get through one day at a time.

Her example brings back the question of time limits. Many military families believe that the job of the armed services is to protect the country, which for the air force, in particular, means constant readiness. Whether carrying out reconnaissance missions or taking part in training exercises, pilots are expected to "treat the situation the same as war" and be prepared to encounter the enemy at any time. Given that, to insist on a distinction between "death in combat" and "death on regular service" and to make it worth a difference in treatment of five years makes the families call "foul!"

Among all the pilots who have lost their lives in military aircraft, the most overlooked and neglected must surely be academy cadets killed in training. Even though they gave their lives in the air, since they never graduated, the monthly compensation afforded to their families is based on that of a sergeant, not an official pilot--a mere NT$10,000 or so a month, only enough to reopen the wounds of grief of their aging parents.

Air force pilots share a passion for flying, and they know that in making their dream come true they may eventually have to pay the ultimate price. But what about their families? There's a vivid passage in Pai Hsien-yung's story "A Touch of Green" where the wife of a senior air force officer is talking to Verdancy, the newly married bride of a junior pilot: "It's not easy to be the wife of a Flying Warrior, you know. Twenty-four long hours a day your heart is trailing up there after him. You can gaze at the sky, and look and look, until your eyes run with blood, but your men up there won't even know.... Since you're married into our village, Verdancy, please don't mind if I speak frankly to you: you've just got to harden your heart in order to endure the storm and stress that is to come." [tr. by the author and Patia Yasin]

That person gazing at the sky, looking and looking until blood runs from the eyes, may be a cherished wife, or an aged father leaning in the doorway watching his son return, or a helpless, suckling babe in arms. But if the worst of the "storm and stress that is to come" should occur, only a sound compensation system will ensure that the bereaved are cared for and will comfort the souls of those resting in the cemetery at Pitan.

[Picture Caption]

When an airman is killed in the skies, his widow and orphaned children are left behind. (photo courtesy of Wu Tsai-yao)

When an airman is killed in the skies, his widow and orphaned children are left behind. （photo courtesy of Wu Tsai-yao）