ODESSA, Ukraine (NNS) -- A chief petty officer supporting exercise Sea Breeze 2010 as an interpreter had the unique opportunity to return to his homeland.
Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretative) (CTIC) Dimtry Sokol left Ukraine 17 years ago for a new life in the United States.
Sokol took work where he could. After various jobs, as pizza deliveryman to laundry person, Sokol decided to join the Navy as Seabee. He became a U.S. citizen in 1997.
"After a few years of being a Seabee I was able to cross-rate to CTIC which is something that I originally wanted to do but couldn't at the time," Sokol said.
Sokol became a Navy language interpreter in Russian and Ukrainian. His Ukrainian background helped make him uniquely qualified for the job.
"I was able to bypass the one-year training course because I scored high enough on the language test," he said.
Sokol serves in a vital role in an exercise that has more than 1,600 service members from 12 different nations participating in land, air and sea operations.
"For Sea Breeze, I am the chief of eight linguists in support of this exercise to provide English support and communication between top-level naval officials as well as the exercise commanders," Sokol said.
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