Oman: Army National Guard Arabic linguists put their skills to work in Oman

By Sgt. 1st Class Rebecca Doucette

Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center

PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. – Soldiers from the Utah Army National Guard's 300th Military Intelligence Brigade (Linguist) provided direct Arabic language support during a U.S. Army Central Command-sponsored field training exercise in Oman.

The multi-national exercise was intended to strengthen military and diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Oman and promote regional stability, by mentoring members of the Omani military forces in conducting combat operations designed to confront terrorism and irregular threats.

"The relationships being built are critical to our country because of the importance of this region, and soldiers on both sides will remember this for a lifetime," said Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Gary Callister, the Arabic linguist manager for the 300th MI Bde.

Callister and three other DLIFLC graduates traveled to Oman for the exercise along with members of the Oregon Army National Guard's 1st Squadron, 82nd Cavalry Regiment, and a platoon from the 125th Forward Support Company, 1st Battalion, 94th Field Artillery Regiment, from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

The linguists were put right to work, translating between U.S. soldiers and the Royal Army of Oman's 11th Brigade, Western Frontier Regiment, during three days of briefings and meet-and-greet events.

"A lot of the Omani officers spoke English, but if they didn't feel comfortable enough, they wanted to have an American interpreter," said Sgt. Tyler Jiles, a linguist who took part in the exchange.

Each linguist was assigned to a platoon for the duration of the event and they turned it into a learning exercise by meeting each night to share key words they had learned. This helped each of them as their platoons rotated through the different stations, which included light infantry tactics, combat medical procedures, operational planning, and military leadership.

For some of the U.S. Soldiers, it took some time to get used to working with the linguists

Jiles explained that the troops would "just spout off a whole five-minute long conversation with no regards to … whether you're going to be able to translate it, and then, even if you could mentally translate everything, you wouldn't have the time to do it [verbally]."

That took a day or two to work out, said Jiles.

"Once they realized what our capabilities were, and saw how good we were with the material we had, and our abilities to be able to work and bridge that gap, they really appreciated us," said Jiles.

The hardest thing Jiles had to do during the mission was to describe every single part and the steps for clearing a MK19 grenade launcher, all on the fly. Even though he didn't necessarily learn those terms at DLIFLC, he was able to successfully accomplish the task.

"You use your vocab that you do have and you go around it," Jiles explained.

In addition to the challenging training, the Soldiers also shared meals, participated in sporting events, and learned about culture with the Omanis. By the end of the training, Omani and U.S. Soldiers frequently commented on the mutual respect and comfort level that developed. Many of the U.S. Soldiers said they were impressed with how interested the Omanis were to learn about them, and the Omanis were happy to see the interest the U.S. Soldiers had in their culture.

Army Staff Sgt. David Reynolds of Troop A, 1st Sqdrn., 82nd Cav. Regt., said it was the first time in his 23 years of military experience that he had been able to train with a foreign army. He said it is great to learn about their culture and military tactics.

For Army Maj. Scot Caughran, the U.S. task force commander for the event, the experience is one he said he will never forget.

"We have improved as a unit and now have an increased respect for Omani culture," he said.

Callister wrapped up the training with the observation that the 300th MI Bde. linguists helped shape key relationships to a greater of effectiveness than would have otherwise been possible without their assistance.

Face of Defense: DOD Needs More People with More Languages

By Natela Cutter

Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center

MONTEREY, Calif., June 20, 2012 – Few people can claim they have been portrayed in a major Hollywood movie as a result of their actions during their government careers. Even fewer can say they contributed to the success of two major covert operations in U.S. history.

Michael G. Vickers, a two-time Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center graduate and the current Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, can take the credit for both, though he is reluctant to admit it.

In the 2007 movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Vickers was depicted as a young paramilitary operations officer who contributed with “brains and brawn” in the mid-1980s to the withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan. In more recent history, Vickers has been recognized as a man who was instrumental in the planning, finding, and killing of the world’s most-wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden.

But Vickers says it was technology and a combination of human intelligence that really contributed to finding bin Laden.

“Human intelligence, signals intelligence and geo-spatial intelligence all played very important roles. A major part of the challenge of that operation was locating him in the first place, and that was a long time coming -- a very patient intelligence operation,” he explained.

On whether knowledge of language contributed to the success of the operation, Vickers said, “I can’t go into more detail -- but, in each of those disciplines, the ability to have officers or translators who were fluent or very professionally competent in a language made all the difference.”

A firm believer that foreign language knowledge “is critical for our national security,” Vickers, who graduated from the DLIFLC Czech course in 1977 and the Spanish course in 1979, has a good understanding of how vital this language skills are for the success of military operations in the field. He spent three years in Panama in a Special Operations unit in the 1980s, during a time when insurgency and terrorism were at an all-time high in Central and South America.

“I taught classes to Latin American officers in Spanish and I worked with them on operations, so, it [language] not only helped me to communicate, but it also gave me a real insight into how they think and approach problems,” he explained.

He told a congressional hearing in May the United States could benefit by having more Defense Department personnel proficient in foreign languages. “It’s an area [foreign language proficiency], frankly, we still need to improve -- both as an intelligence community and in the Special Operations field. It’s very hard to maintain high levels of proficiency in languages if you’re not using it all the time,” said Vickers, drawing from his own experience as a linguist in Spanish and Czech.

Offering incentives to those willing to maintain high language proficiency may be the answer, Vickers said.

“For example, Secretary of Defense [Leon E.] Panetta, when he was director at the CIA, mandated professional fluency in a foreign language to get promoted. And, it certainly had an impact on the number of people working harder at it,” Vickers said, adding that the key to maintaining a pool of highly proficient linguists depends on the requirements put in place.

“You just have to insist on the standards or it will never happen,” he said.

Vickers reiterated that foreign language instruction and training is vital to national security.

“There is an inherent federal government responsibility, as we learned early in the Cold War with national security education … Government investment in that is very important,” he said.

”A second point I would make is that early language education is critical,” to providing candidates for a pool of seasoned U.S. government linguists.

McHugh: Language Skills Critical to Mission Success

By Claudette Roulo

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON  – Language skills and cultural understanding are critical tools for accomplishing missions in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, Secretary of the Army John McHugh said during a May 21 visit to the Defense Language Institute, Foreign Language Center in Monterey, Calif.

The facility provides resident instruction in 23 languages and two dialects. Students include active duty and reserve component service members from all branches of the armed forces, members of foreign militaries and civilian law enforcement personnel.

McHugh toured the Persian-Farsi school and viewed demonstrations of the educational technologies used in developing and sustaining language skills.

As the Army downsizes, McHugh said, soldiers with language skills will become even more critical to the force’s mission success.

“The relevancy of this program -- this entire mission -- I think has never been greater,” he added. “As our number and our footprint gets smaller, I think we would expect those who remain behind to be more culturally aware, to be more adept at language.”

Demand Grows for Squad-level Linguist Program

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

MONTEREY, Calif., Oct. 26, 2011 – Last year, 74 soldiers at Fort Campbell, Ky., became the first to participate in a new program that provides short-term, intensive language and cultural training to deploying military members.

The general purpose force program wasn’t designed for professional linguists or interpreters, explained Sam Garzaniti, who manages it at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center here.

Rather, the program provides basic Dari or Pashto instruction, taught by native Afghan speakers, to help nonlinguists -- military police, medics, truck drivers and infantrymen, among them, -- operate more effectively on the ground in Afghanistan.

Retired Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal came up with the concept when he commanded the International Security Assistance Force to create what deployed forces refer to as “squad-designated linguists” able to communicate with the Afghan people. Graduates of the program proved so beneficial to their deployed units that it’s now growing by leaps and bounds.

Fort Carson, Colo., one of three pilot sites when the program stood up last year, soon sent almost 300 soldiers to a condensed version of the training before they deployed. The vast majority studied Dari, with the other 49 soldiers learning Pashto. Fort Drum, N.Y., also in the pilot program, sent 55 10th Mountain Division soldiers to its initial general purpose force training.

“After that, it has just been a steady flow of classes,” Garzaniti said. Schofield Barracks in Hawaii signed on to the program in September 2010. Fort Bragg, N.C., followed earlier this year.

The Marines jumped on board, too, with Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Camp Pendleton, Calif., joining the program last fall.

To date, about 1,000 service members have completed the program, Garzaniti said. He expects more enrollment in the program as word about it spreads.

Classes typically run 13 to 16 weeks, with students spending as much as six hours a day in the classroom, in addition to practice sessions and mandatory study halls.

Unlike other Defense Language Institute programs, the general purpose force curriculum focuses on listening and speaking skills, Garzaniti said. Students learn vocabulary and verb tenses and how to construct sentences. Then they practice using them in various scenarios similar to what they might encounter in Afghanistan.

“It’s a very-focused program,” Garzaniti said. “We’re not going for global proficiency. We are going for tactical functionality.”

Graduates aren’t meant to take the place of professional linguists and interpreters, he said. For example, they typically aren’t able to discuss the news with local Afghans. They can, however, ask for directions or share pleasantries over tea or during key leader engagements.

They also have the skills to ask questions and understand responses at roadblocks and read street signs and even graffiti on walls that may provide clues about insurgent activities.

“That makes them a force multiplier,” Garzaniti said. “When they go out and do their operations, whatever they may be, having somebody there in the front able to at least greet [the Afghans] and lay groundwork for something makes a huge difference. They are somebody to help.”

Returning units report that even limited language and cultural skills have helped them in their mission. “We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from people who have been in country saying, ‘Hey, this works absolutely great,’” Garzaniti said. “They tell you that you speak two words and you see a face light up.”

A professional linguist himself who retired from the Army last year, Garzaniti said he has seen firsthand the impact language ability had on the Afghans we encountered.

“They know you took the time to learn at least a few words, a phrase, two phrases,” he said. “It makes all the difference in the world.”

More units are signing up as the message spreads about general purpose force training availability, Garzaniti said.

“I definitely don’t see any slowdown in business,” he said. “As more commanders hear the good stories from our brigades and battalions and companies that have used these people [during deployments], we see them starting to put their hands up and asking, ‘What about me?’”

‘Dot-edu’ Migration Promotes Language Training

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif., Aug. 29, 2011 – A pilot program that gives students at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center unprecedented access to language training resources is proving so successful that it’s being expanded throughout the school.

The pilot, launched Feb. 1, enables 200 students studying Dari -- a dialect spoken in Afghanistan -- to tap into materials and capabilities offered through the educational, or “dot-edu”, network, said Jonathan Russell, the language center’s chief technology officer.

Instead of operating in the dot-mil domain that’s often hampered by security and bandwidth restrictions, students in the pilot use the same network that supports accredited civilian colleges and universities.

The Naval Postgraduate School, also in Monterey and one of the few military institutions operating in the edu domain, provides the access through an agreement between the two schools.

“We physically connected 200 students to the NPS network, and we gave them access to mobile devices, a robust wireless network, more bandwidth … [to improve] network speeds and access to some open-source technologies,” Russell said.

This includes a wealth of material about Afghanistan and its most widely spoken language, including al-Jazeera and Voice of America broadcasts, foreign-language newspapers and tools such as Skype and Google Earth.

“All of our curriculum is audiovisual-based, so it involves lots of large-file formats and tons of storage,” as well as access to authentic materials, Russell said.

But the military network simply wasn’t designed to accommodate that. For example, prohibitions on external drives made it all but impossible for students to download material from classroom “smart boards” onto their computers, or to electronically submit homework assignments. The center’s work-around was to position stand-alone computers not connected to the network around the school, used by both students and their instructors to exchange files.

“The military network is an operational network that’s security-focused,” Russell said. “We are very much like a university.”

The transition to the dot-edu network has been revolutionary, students told Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta during his visit here last week.

“It’s been night and day,” said Army Spc. Eric Morales, who like other students in the pilot, spent his first semester at the center studying under the dot-mil network before the pilot program kicked off.

“This innovation lets us go on to open-source websites in order to quickly gather the information we need and link up with websites that have our target language on them,” said Army Sgt. Noah Mott, another Dari student. “We as a military unit have been able to use them in a way that better helps us understand our foreign language.”

Mott called the transition a huge benefit, particularly in light of the highly compressed training cycles at the center. The basic course for Dari, one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn, runs just 47 weeks.

“We have these students for a short amount of time and are trying to get them to very, very high proficiency levels in their target languages,” Russell said. “So if I can get them just two minutes a day extra as far as getting them time on task, that is huge.

“And that is at the base of what the edu network is,” he continued. “We are trying to optimize the network so they can have access to the information they need very fast in the manner in which they want to get it.”

Officials at the center are so impressed with the pilot program that plans are under way to expand it to the entire institute.

The transition required an extensive review by a panel of Defense Department, Defense Information Systems Agency and service representatives, who gave their official go-ahead to the plan in April, Russell reported. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, which oversees the language center, approved funding for the project in July.

Now, the school is in the process of procuring the required equipment so it can begin building out the network and data center this fall.

If all comes together as planned, Russell and his staff plan to begin migrating students off the global information grid

“By fall 2012, we should be fully migrated to the edu network,” he said. “At that point, we will be giving students the same tools the leading universities are using -- giving them connectivity and putting them at the forward edge of learning.”

Language, Cultural Studies Gains More Focus at Service Academies

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

May 25, 2007 – Gen. George Washington would probably roll over in his grave if he knew the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. -- the school he advocated to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign military expertise -- is increasingly sending its cadets overseas to learn with and from their foreign counterparts. Times have changed since Washington led the charge for academic institutions that would free American forces from foreign dependence.

Today, some 185 years after West Point became the first of three U.S. military academies, followed by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., all three schools are thinking globally in the way they educate future officers.

Engineering and hard sciences, historically mainstays at the academies, remain a big part of their curricula. Sixty percent of Naval Academy midshipmen, 54 percent of Air Force Academy cadets, and 45 percent of West Point cadets major in technical studies.

But ever-increasing numbers of cadets and midshipmen are studying and majoring in humanities and social sciences, with a growing emphasis being put on regional studies and language instruction.

The goal, academy officials said, is to ensure graduates have not only a solid technical foundation critical to military operations, but also other skills they'll need to enter a wartime force deployed around the world.

"We want all our graduates to have a technical foundation, and a leadership and ethical foundation. That hasn't changed," said William Miller, academic dean and provost at the Naval Academy.

"What's changed has been an increasing realization that there is a third leg of this stool that we haven't emphasized enough," he said. "And that is giving all of our graduates a foundation of understanding about the history and culture and civilizations and governments and religions of the areas in which they are going to serve."

Army Col. Dan Ragsdale, vice dean at West Point, said regional studies and language training in the curriculum help develop critical thinkers able to look at the issues they will confront as military officers through a wide-angle lens.

"The kinds of problems that our ... graduates will face are across a broad spectrum, so we have to give them a technological foundation," he said. "But we also have to give them a social and cultural perspective around which to address and solve problems. We have to help them understand and appreciate the political aspects of any problem they are trying to address."

It also gives newly commissioned graduates the skills they will need as they work shoulder to shoulder with coalition partners and allies around the world, noted Gunter Mueller, head of the Air Force Academy's foreign language department.

"We are increasingly a part of coalition forces, no matter where we go and where we operate," Mueller said. "And the better one understands the elements of those coalitions, the more effective one can be. In fact, it's critical that we understand other cultures, other languages, other regions of the world in order to work effectively in those coalitions."

As the largest service with the biggest footprint around the world, the Army is leading the global trend. Ten to 15 percent of cadets in every West Point class major in one of seven languages: Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese and Russian, Ragsdale said.

All West Pointers, regardless of their major, must take at least two semesters of a foreign language, he said. Beginning with the class of 2010, cadets with non-technical majors must take four semesters of language training.

The Naval Academy introduced two language majors, in Chinese and Arabic, this year. Although only 16 midshipmen currently are enrolled, Miller expects that number to grow.

All midshipmen with non-technical majors must take four semesters of language training, he said. Those with technical majors currently have no language requirement, but many select language courses as electives.

Miller said he hopes to add a foreign area studies major to the Naval Academy's curriculum. Currently, the political science program offers an international studies track that addresses various areas of the world, including their languages, cultures, governments and histories, he said.

At the Air Force Academy, humanities and social science majors must take two full years of training in one of seven languages-a number to increase to eight next year, reported Brig. Gen. Dana Born, dean of faculty. In a new change, incoming cadets who major in technical and science will be required to study at least one year of language training, she said.

The foreign area studies major is relatively new at the academy, with just 49 members of this year's graduating class earning degrees in this area. But Born said the trend lines are positive, with 80 cadets from the 2009 class already declaring foreign area studies majors.

Educating future officers in regional and language studies doesn't stop at the classroom door. All three academies have large and growing programs that give students the chance to participate in cultural and language immersion programs. These range from short-term orientation visits to full semesters abroad at foreign military academies or civilian universities.

That's a sea change from when Miller graduated from the Naval Academy in 1962, "back in the age of sail."

"When I went through here, we all expected to spend eight semesters on the shores of the Severn (River)," he said. "And now it's becoming more common for some select few who are still going to graduate in four years to spend seven semesters here and a semester abroad."

Born, a 1983 Air Force Academy graduate, was one of the earlier participants in a four-week language immersion program in Spain and remembers its benefits. "I had taken several years of Spanish and thought I was fluent until I got into my first conversation on the ground," she said. "But when I came back after having spoken only Spanish for four weeks, I was dreaming in Spanish and the first word to come to my mind was Spanish. It really taught me the value of how important not only taking a language is, but also having to use that language to communicate."

Cultural and language opportunities have expanded greatly since Born's experience, and now include countries beyond Western Europe.

This year, for example, the Military Academy sent 86 cadets for semesters abroad in 10 different countries. Next year, Ragsdale said about 140 cadets will spend semesters abroad in about a dozen countries.

In addition, about 190 West Point cadets participated this year in the academy's Foreign Academy Exchange Program and other seven- to 10-day spring immersion programs in more than 40 countries. This summer, another 390 cadets are signed on to participate in three-week summer immersion programs in 43 countries.

"We're looking at different ways of providing experiences for cadets that will enhance their cultural awareness, their regional expertise and their language proficiency," Ragsdale said.

The other academies are following West Point's lead. About 165 Naval Academy midshipmen participated in some type of language and cultural immersion program in 15 countries this year. Ten spent semesters abroad at foreign military academies in five countries.

The Air Force Academy sent 592 cadets for overseas training that ranged from a brief visit to a foreign academy to a five-month semester abroad. That's up from 132 cadets last year, and is nudging toward 700, where Born expects it to eventually level off.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, a 1973 West Point graduate who recently retired as commander of U.S. Central Command, said he's a big supporter of the academies' efforts to bring more regional and language training to their programs.

As cadets and midshipmen graduate and serve as military officers around the world, particularly in areas like Iraq and Afghanistan, it's critical that they understand the cultures in which they're operating, he said.

"The cultural gap in this particular conflict that we are faced with today is a problem that we have all got to recognize, understand and then adjust to," he said. "So much of the problem that we are facing in the Middle East is a cultural gap that can be closed by earlier education in an officer's career."

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