Life has gotten easier over time.The barracks were ventilated and fans installed for summer, for fear that the students would be unable to sleep because of the heat. And shower time became much more humane. According to Tung Han-lin, information officer at Chengkungling, by the 1990s no one was taking combat showers, for fear that the students might slip and injure themselves. Showering was divided into three steps. First one platoon washed up, while the other two ate and organized their clothes, respectively. In addition, hikes were canceled because, given the large number of students involved these days, there were concerns about safety on the roads.Boot camp or summer camp?
Chengkungling became increasingly humane, which was inevitable given these changing times. According to Major Yang, who has been supervising the university babies at Chengkungling for over a decade, modern families often have only one or two children, and parents can't bear to see their children suffer. Also, children today don't cope so well with indignities and frustrations. It is difficult for them to adapt to the uniformity of army life. So the military has also had to adapt its training methods. But this has drawn criticism that Chengkungling increasingly has come to resemble "summer camp" and training cannot be compared to the early years.
In the early days, there were few students, and if a family had someone going to Chengkungling for military training this was seen as an honor. So that parents could understand the training process and see how their children were adapting, at each stage of training Chengkungling arranged a family visitation day. This allowed parents to spend time with their beloved sons and see how things were progressing in camp.
In that bygone era, parents came to Chengkungling by train. But as Taiwan has grown wealthier, virtually all families now drive to the camp. This has created terrible traffic problems around Cheng-kungling on visitation days. Back in July of 1991, when training was still six weeks, for visitation day for the camp's 12,000 trainees, there were 60,000 visitors, 20,000 cars, and 400-plus buses. This created a tremendous traffic jam on the highway. Since then, the training period has been shortened, so the number of visitors has dropped considerably.
Early on, the point on which Chengkungling came in for the most criticism was that it cost freshmen one month of classes. This led to question: "Is training at Chengkungling more important than classes at school?" Wu Hui-lin, a researcher at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, noted in an article that freshman university students, having just left high school and entered a completely new environment in university, most need time to adjust. Moreover, in freshman year many of the classes are basic, fundamental classes. Professors frequently worry that there's not enough time in the semester to teach everything, so how could students afford to lose a month of time?
There are also many who argued that while every year 50-60,000 students participated in the training sessions, after graduation only about one in ten was able to become reserve officers. The short few weeks of training in fact was virtually no help to their future military service.
Under the circumstances, the Ministry of Defense has decided that the university student intensive training system is of limited value to the country's efforts to streamline the military and raise its combat readiness. Thus it announced that after the winter session of 1999, it will terminate the Chengkungling intensive training course, ending this 40-year tradition. To date, Chengkungling has trained more than 1,336,000 young people. Of these, 210 were women. The latter group took part in the first and only training session for female university students, the brainchild of former Minister of Education Wu Ching, but the idea was abandoned when that first women's session, held in January of 1997, proved controversial.
For those who have been through the baptism of Chengkungling, the termination of the intensive course there symbolizes "the death of a collective experience." But there's no force that does not eventually disband, and the wheel of history continues to roll forward. The bittersweet experiences of Chengkungling will just have to remain the unique memories of the generations who passed through its gates.
Obstacle course? This photo is turned upwards, but these soldiers only go forward.
Hand grenade practice was nerve-wracking, even though the grenades were disarmed.
"I did it!" Chengkungling turned callow boys into confident men.