It could have been a scene lifted straight from the classic Sean Connery film "The Hill" -- a drama in which a military prison erupts into riot after an inmate dies following a repetitive drill on an artificial hill in the blazing desert sun.
But in Taiwan's real life version of the film, 18 army officers have been charged, a defense minister has resigned and the parents of 24-year-old Hung Chung-chiu are still demanding justice after their son died following an arduous punishment drill in Taiwan's searing summer heat.
Corporal Hung was just three days short of completing his military service last month when he was reportedly put in solitary confinement for bringing a mobile phone with a camera onto his military base, normally a minor military transgression.
Later subjected to a series of tough punishment exercises, doctors say he died of organ failure brought on by severe heatstroke.
Since then, Taipei has erupted in protest.
More than 100,000 placard-waving people protested outside the Presidential Palace on the weekend, according to organizers Citizen 1985, and another large protest is scheduled for this weekend.
The protest underscores the increasing unpopularity of military service, not just in Taiwan, but in Asia's other developed economies such as South Korea and Singapore where young people see compulsory military service as an unwelcome interruption to university and a career.
Singapore, with a conscription period of 24 months and a further six months of reservist obligations, has one of the longest periods of national service behind South Korea and Israel.
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