The photograph was taken on January 11, 1987, a time when Taiwan was at a historical turning point.
This old photo, for me (彌勒熊), is more than just a memento of my military service; it documents the dark side of military history I experienced during the final years of Taiwan’s martial law era.
1987: An Intersection with History at the ‘East Security Department’ This can be considered a “stirring and tragic story” from my personal military career.
At the time, I was stationed at the East Security Department (東警部), supporting the Three Principles of the People Study Class at Company 301. That year, a few comrades and I won the top three spots in a competition, earning us a one-week honorary leave—and, of course, some secret military time “watching a lot of adult films,” as was common in that era.
However, the most unforgettable part of this support duty was a sentinel shooting incident that was swiftly covered up by the system.
The Sentinel Killing: A Covered-Up Truth and Karmic Blowback
The main character of this incident was a fellow recruit from the same intake, who thoroughly infuriated a small-statured junior conscript whom he had long bullied. The catalyst was making the junior conscript cover his guard duty for an extra hour and a half (a typical shift was only two hours). That day, the junior conscript ended up standing guard continuously for three and a half hours without a break, and of course, no chance to use the restroom.
In 1987, a shooting incident that occurred on a Taiwan Garrison Command (警總) base was definitely not going to make the news headlines.
Eerie Omens Before the Incident
What was chilling were the extremely abnormal actions of the conscript who was killed on the day before the shooting:
• He shared his combat rations and beef jerky—food he never shared—with everyone.
• He even packed his large Huangpu backpack and said goodbye to everyone, despite having no transfer orders.
• I ran into him at noon the day before the incident, and his face was utterly pale—to put it bluntly, it truly resembled the color of a corpse, and was completely abnormal.
A friend asked if this was “bad karma” or “karmic blowback”? I cannot give an answer, but that sense of foreboding remains vividly etched in my memory.
The Type 57 Rifle and Three Shots
Garrison Command sentries performed their duties with live ammunition, their weapons not only loaded but also fixed with bayonets, and each of the two magazines held 10 rounds. The young soldier who fired the shots used an old Type 57 rifle (caliber 7.62x51mm). Although this rifle, produced in 1957 (Republic of China Year 46), couldn’t fire on full-auto, its design caused the bullet to travel in a spiral, resulting in immense destructive power:
“A small hole in the front, and a 20-cm hole in his back.” “He must have died before he ran away, but instinct made him run 20 meters.”
When I heard the first shot, a senior conscript stopped me. This was immediately followed by the second shot, and the third shot “hit the wall of our office.” The entire process was extremely brief, lasting less than a minute.
Surprisingly, the soldier who fired the three rounds did not resist. Instead, he sat dumbfounded on the ground, as if abruptly awakened from a murderous rage. The person most in need of a spiritual cleansing was ironically the greenhorn security non-commissioned officer standing nearby, who was frozen solid with fright.
The Aftermath of a Dark Era and Strange Military Tales
In that era, “it was completely normal for people to die while serving in the Republic of China military”:
• Official Handling: At the time, a soldier’s life was insignificant; the only thing the family ultimately received was an urn of ashes. Cases of officers sexually assaulting junior soldiers were also “written up, but completely useless.”
• Military Ghost Stories: Besides the shooting, there were many inexplicable phenomena. When I was undergoing new recruit training at Pudin, Hsinchu, the toilets in front of me would all flush simultaneously at two or three in the morning, even though there were no automatic devices.
• A Tragedy of the Times: At that time, Hau Pei-tsun (then Chief of the General Staff) implemented a policy to reduce the service period. Due to the differences between enlistment cohorts, those who enlisted just fifteen days earlier (or more) found themselves having to serve 10 extra months. A difference of one intake could cause a huge disparity in compulsory service time, leading to psychological imbalance and even suicides.
The Historical Footnote of the Type 57 Rifle
The murder weapon—the domestically produced Type 57 rifle—is actually a microcosm of Taiwan’s military industrial history. It was the M14 automatic rifle manufactured under US authorization. Although powerful, highly accurate, and long-range, the US prohibited design changes, making it flawed from the start. Its weight, large recoil, and the massive wounds caused by the 7.62x51mm ammunition all stand as bloody witnesses to that “dark era.”
This old photograph of mine outlines the reality of Taiwan in 1987, where, on the eve of political democratization, the military remained shrouded in the shadows of martial law’s disregard for human rights and life. The immense bullet hole of that Type 57 rifle is the indelible historical scar left by that time.