The changing of the honor guards at the Martyr's Shrine happens at the beginning of each hour during the day. Many children watching the guards often try to imitate their neat and grand footsteps. After several visits and interviews, we actually found out that there are many rules and different patterns in footsteps, hand gestures and signaling for each military type. Here are some of the interviews with these soldiers in which they tell us about these interesting rules.

Ensign Squad Leader Yo Guo-Song	Plainclothes Guard next to the honor guard	Guard in the guardroom	Navy Leading honor guard

1.Air Force military procession ensign squad leader Sergeant Yo Guo-Song
Yo says that the ensign bearer has to stand in front of the whole military procession as a leader to perform when welcoming honorable guests from other countries or during important ceremonies. However, an ensign bearer is usually not necessary in the guard mounting process. A military procession usually takes up two hours. As the major representative of all military forces, the ensign bearer has to be well in shape and have high endurance. They are usually well-trained in keeping their arms steady when holding the flag and maintaining a good posture along the way.
According to Yo, an ensign bearer needs to have a height between 189 and 193 cm. The soldier holding the national flag needs to be over 193cm tall. Ensign bearers have to have normal body weight with good physique and a clean-cut look.
2.Air Force ceremonial guard Corporal Lu, Bo-Hsien
Lu explains that honor guards take slower strides to express the solemn spirit. The slow motion also allows time for all the guards to align their hand gestures and footsteps with each other.
Lu also describes the responsibilities of the plainclothes guards. During the changing of the ceremonial guards, the plainclothes guards in white shirts stand between the ceremonial guards and the visitors. They make sure that the visitors are standing in the appropriate area while watching and they remind the visitors to remain quiet in the main hall. After the ceremonial guards are in position, the plainclothes guards may need to wipe off sweat on the guard's face or adjust the gun tassel. The ceremonial guards take turn being the plainclothes guards.
3.Air Force guard Private 1st class Ou Hsin-Liang
Ou is not a ceremonial guard. He stays in the guardroom in the entrance building, sometimes overnight, keeping watch of the flow of cars and visitors coming in and out of the Martyrs' Shrine. Ou is also responsible for taking care of any issues first hand. There was a time when we went to the Martyrs' Shrine for many hours to shoot films and take pictures. A guard came over to us to make sure that we were not up to something bad. Since then, we would always notify the guardroom before we go about our business in the Martrys' Shrine.
4.Navy Leading honor guard Soong, Choon-Yi
Soong is very tall and good-looking; he is the leading honor guard. We asked for his permission first before we took pictures of him for making bookmarks. Then we asked him to talk about the positioning of the honor guards. Soong says that there are four guards in all, with two standing underneath the entrance building, two in front of the main building. The leading honor guard does not have to be a watch guard. After the changing of the guards, Soong then becomes the plainclothes guard for a while.

Website Translated by Ou Yang Pei-ting( Top )