We still don't grasp the value of translators
Writing for the AP, Jason Straziuso published a troubling piece Thursday morning called, "Many translators unfit in any language." Here's an excerpt:
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U.S. troops say companies that recruit military translators are sending linguists to southern Afghanistan who are unprepared to serve in combat, even as hundreds more are needed to support the growing number of troops.
Some translators are in their 60s and 70s and in poor physical condition — and some don’t even speak the right language.
“I’ve met guys off the planes and have immediately sent them back because they weren’t in the proper physical shape,” said Gunnery Sgt. James Spangler, who is in charge of linguists at Camp Leatherneck, the largest U.S. base in Helmand province.
“They were too old. They couldn’t breathe. They complained about heart problems,” he said. “We almost made a joke of it. We’re almost receiving people on oxygen tanks and colostomy bags; it’s almost getting to that point.”
And that’s not the worst of it.
Troops say low-skilled and disgruntled translators are putting U.S. forces at risk.
“Intelligence can save Marines’ lives and give us the advantage on the battlefield,” said Cpl. William Woodall, 26, of Dallas, who works closely with translators. “Instead of looking for quality, the companies are just pushing bodies out here, and once they’re out the door, it’s not their problem anymore.”
What I still don't understand is why a military operating in a COIN evironment would attempt to outsource arguably its most important tactical skill: communicating with the locals. We don't outsource any other critical skill in infantry units. The medic? He's not a contractor. The forward observer? He's not a contractor. The grenadier? He's not a contractor. So why are translators outsourced in a similar fashion to cooks and the people who do the laundry? What does that say about our priorities?
I'm well aware that the length of time to adequately train an interpreter is considerably longer than the time to train an FO or a SAW gunner. I also know that native speakers are not only best, but also hard to come by. But in the case of Afghanistan, we've been there for eight years and have made little effort to emphasize the acquisition of language skills in soldiers themselves. Instead of outsourcing the job of recruiting Pashto, Farsi, and Arabic speakers, why isn't the military recruiting them and sending them to Basic Training or OCS? Why aren't we sending more soldiers to DLI? We've had eight years to work on this, and we probably have at least eight more ahead of us. This is a critical skill that shouldn't be undervalued as it seemingly is now.
It is far more complicated and always has been.
There are plenty of good, dedicated linguists in the services -- most of them are properly employed and are not serving as 'terps -- nor should they be. The length of language training for a post pubescent person to get proficiency in a second language starting from scratch is in excess of three years. That is quite costly and to take that person and put him or her in the field with a rifle company in combat would not really be a very good use of resources.
Train 'em for a year and you get marginal proficiency, do an accelerated course and you get less. That is not to say that everyone shouldn't get some basic phrases, they should and good leaders will make them use them but that's a long way from being a translator or interpreter.
Language training at DLI (full disclosure; Farsi student there, BCE, here) includes some cultural adaptation. Speaking from experience, that cultural adaptation is mediocre at best -- because the foreign born instructors are not going to tell you all the bad stuff you need to know. I learned more in 30 days in country then I had in a year at the Presidio. I also learned that my language skill was below marginal, not quite laughable to most Iranians but close (they're very polite) -- and that most of the school graduates I met there and in other countries believed the same was true of their experience
I also spent more time traveling out of Iran and having to deal with Arabic than I did having to deal with Farsi in Iran. Much like a good friend who spent a year learning Viet Namese and a year advising a Montagnard Battalion wherein no one spoke Viet Namese. Or the ASA guy voice intercept guy in Iran who was a Mandarin linguist (he ended up being the Station's chief scrounger)...
Not to mention that all the training in the world won't give you a sense of the nuances and little clues that a locally born and raised interpreter will.
Having watch the USG try to hire interpreters in several languages in various locales for combat use and having watched the performance of some so hired, I noticed that not many local really wanted to take the interpreter job because it's dangerous and their friends and neighbors don't approve. I also noticed that among those hired, cases of divided loyalties were quite common -- leading to a high turnover rate. There also seemed all too often to be a lack of quality; since the job wasn't popular, you didn't get the best and the brightest.
No question that it would be nice to have good 'terps down to platoon level but it's difficult. There are no easy solutions to that -- stick your nose in another nation and that's one of the smaller problems you will accrue. There are other more pressing problems.
Training: Vietnam vs.Today
My sense, though I have no definitive data to support it, is that there was a much more extensive program to teach Vietnamese during the Vietnam War than we have undertaken for our current conflicts. I'll do some research this afternoon, but anecdotal evidence from reading suggests SF teams, advisors, MI personnel, interrogators and a host of other personnel all received training and many became quite proficient in Vietnamese and other local languages. In contrast, I know almost no Army personnel in MI, SF or any other branch that have developed any significant capability in Pashto. I am branch transferring to Civil Affairs this year and Pashto isn't even one of the choices for languages, though we can still choose Russian and Korean. There are a total of 8(!) Pashto coded positions in the entire Army (all in the 96th Civil Affairs BN) despite over 8 years fighting in Afghanistan. While not indicative of the total number of soldiers actually training in DLI, those MTOE and TDA positions drive training and suggest to me a singular lack of effort to develop any institutional Pashto capability.
You were extremely fortunate
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Originally Posted by
Brandon Friedman
We were lucky enough to have a DLI-trained Arabic translator assigned to our company for three weeks when we first arrived in Baghdad in April 2003. She was nothing like you're describing. Her Arabic wasn't perfect, but she could communicate adequately for our tactical needs, she was the most culturally aware and sensitive member of the company, and Iraqis were willing to work with her. If she was representative of what DLI is capable of turning out in a year's time, I'd take that any day over what the contractors seem to be providing.
I'm sure most people would be happy to have someone like that. I do note you only had her for three weeks and while I have no idea why that short time, I still contend that the expense of even one year of Arabic without the intermediate and advanced follow-ons is not sensibly risked at Company level.
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You guys are saying that we can't adequately hire, train, and retain our own translators. At the same time, the AP is reporting--as is IntelTrooper--that troops in the field say the contractors can't provide satisfactory interpreters, either.
Yep, and as I said, that's been true for many years.
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This means we can't do COIN.
Not so. Just means it isn't easy and you have to work harder and get frustrated more often. Gray hair makes guys look distinguished. Gives the young gravitas...:wry:
Meinertzhagen:
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... there was a much more extensive program to teach Vietnamese during the Vietnam War than we have undertaken for our current conflicts.
There was, aside from DLI at Monterey, Anacostia and Lackland, there were subsidiary schools at Bragg and Gordon (may have been more). All ran short six week courses as well as the major locations running the long courses. All assigned to Advisory duty supposedly went to a twelve week Military Assistance Training Advisor (MATA) Course, six weeks of language and six of advisor training, tactical stuff and so forth. IIRC, about two thirds actually got to the Course and most but not all those did serve as Advisors where the language was helpful. The course was not operating early on, seems like it came on line in 66.
The quality of instruction varied as all instructors are not equal and the quality of graduates varied even more as all persons do not adapt to another language equally well. Notably, as Viet Namese is a tonal language, the native Spanish speakers did better than most anglos. No other local languages were taught to my knowledge except for a little Rhade and Meo briefly at Bragg. As a point of interest, to my knowledge few Infantry Battalions in Viet Nam had or used interpreters (I know of none) but SF, PsyOps and Civil Affairs did. Some turned out to be agents for Clyde but most were straight. Some with the SF teams got to be quite proficient -- they were generally the ones that didn't mind fighting; a trait not all interpreters there shared.
The MATA course was taught at Bragg by the Special Warfare School and they put some great effort into it. They got help from the 82d who only sent one Bde to VN. This time around they're pulling year on an year off like everyone else plus the relationship now is not as good as it used to be.
Today SF / SOCOM still have the FID proponency but they declined to operate any courses for other than SOCOM personnel due to mission pressure. They are providing people to assist at Riley and at Polk
All that was doable then because security clearance procedures could be and were waived, visa issues were ignored and instructors were flown from Viet Nam to the US to teach the classes, pay was outside the norms on the high side and SF fully supported the training mission at Bragg. That and the Army and the government wanted to do it (at least early on). The vastly increased bureaucracy plus current inter agency and inter force parochialism will not allow any of that today. The initial stage of today's wars were not fondly welcomed by the bulk of the USG or the Army; thus VN's 'can-do' was replaced with Afghanistan and Iraq's 'we don't really want to do this' on many levels.
All those factors combine to make a big difference in what gets done and how. Stupid, but there you are.
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anecdotal evidence from reading suggests SF teams, advisors, MI personnel, interrogators and a host of other personnel all received training and many became quite proficient in Vietnamese and other local languages.
Be interested to see what you turn up. My recollection is that those with a flair for languages did okay and those the pulled multiple tours where they interfaced with the Viet Namese daily did so as well. For most others, it was a smattering and little more. I suspect your 'host' and 'many' will be overstatements with respect to total numbers deployed to SEA and even to Advisory duty but there's no question that the numbers exceed today's spotty efforts on a per capita as well as a raw basis.
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In contrast, I know almost no Army personnel in MI, SF or any other branch that have developed any significant capability in Pashto. I am branch transferring to Civil Affairs this year and Pashto isn't even one of the choices for languages, though we can still choose Russian and Korean.
They're still important.
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...suggest to me a singular lack of effort to develop any institutional Pashto capability.
True. Consider what you know of our involvement in Afghanistan and of US history, add to that your knowledge of USG bureaucracy and if you're like me you come up with no excuse, we could've done better but we didn't and I know why and cannot fix it and don't think the Army's going to do so in the time we have left there... :rolleyes:
What if the Boss doesn't ask for the right things?
Reviewing this thread and Jedburgh's thread some then and now comparisons forcefully smacked me in the face. The difference between the language approach in Viet Nam (which was far from perfect but much better than today's efforts) and the HUMINT Troops lack of a language is simple.
We used to do what was right; today we do what the boss wants or is presumed to want. Thus my subject line.
DLI - Best Language Institute in the World
They always sell themselves that way and it is true. They are also negligent in their refusal to properly tailor their curriculum, or at least some courses, to the operating forces.
Whenever you pay people to do language all day long, five days a week for six to eighteen months and provide the greatest collection of native language speakers in one place AND don't give them anything else (college classes, other burdens, jobs to pay college bills) then you are going to have a great capacity to teach languages. That is why DLI is the best in the world and that is also why it is criminal that they cannot do better with what they've got.
One problem is that the school is only aimed at producing professional linguists in one mold and it is assumed that they will be back for following intermediate and advanced courses, dialect courses, etc. Thus, it focuses on learning a language clasically, stressing grammar, writing etc, to the detriment of being able to actually use it to communicate with people on the street. It is also very focused on listening and document reading rather than conversation and spends a lot of time on creating skills, such as detailed transcription, translation, and other listening skills, that not all linguists will need. I do think that we need to have people who have such a good basis, but the school should have stood up a program more focused on interacting with native speakers shortly after 9/11 to run alongside their main courses. So, you've got HUMINT guys and FAOs who are going to do a lot more face-to-face interaction studying alongside folks who are going to spend their careers listening to recordings and the skill sets are different. If you need operational language capability now, you can't wait to train up a linguist through three separate schools (basic, intermed, advanced). You need to focus the training.
With regard to Arabic, a major stumbling block is that despite the pleas of operational linguists, highly experienced military language instructors, some native instructors that worked as terps or in their own militaries, and even language academics at other premier institutions, DLI institutionally refuses to move away from the complete Modern Standard Arabic model they've run for years and move toward what many call "Educated Spoken Arabic." Basically, all literate Arabs know how to read MSA and understand it spoken, so it is the language of the press, official forums, etc. If you can speak MSA, almost anyone will understand you. Problem is, most people will respond to you in some mix of dialect. DLI says we can't teach all the dialects, so we won't try at all. However, other schools and agencies recognize that there is a core of common words that a lot of the dialects share and that you can teach a "standard dialect." DLI will have none of it. So, if a DLI grad from the Arabic basic course is stellar and attains a 3/3, which is on the order of less than 10% of the graduating population, from my limited experience, they still won't understand when an Arab in any city says "What are you doing here" because all the words in that sentence differ from MSA to dialect, but they are relatively common between dialects. To give an indication of the problem, the words that vary between MSA and dialect are basic, critical words: to do, to see, to look, to go, question words, negation, now, today, tomorrow, left, go straight, man, woman, etc. If one learns the standard dialect, Arabs will still be able to go deeper into their local dialect and not be understood, but if they want to communicate with you, they will be able to. Not all Arabs can easily speak to you in MSA though, or will try to.
If the right pressure was brought to bear, the school could be training at least some of your linguists, intel types, and FAOs to speak this standard dialect and could emphasize speaking conversationally over transcription, translation, and other more technical linguist skills, but to date the bureaucracy has successfully resisted.
Where to recruit native language speakers?
Given that there are refugee / expatriate communities from around the world in the developed / Western world, why can't we recruit from them? I read elsewhere today that 40k Afghans reside in the Ukraine, as a settled community; I concede they may not be Pathans - the current need.
A colleague who served in Kabul a few years ago referred to working with Swedish-Iranians (as Farsi was close to Dari) and another that Canada has Canadian-Afghans who wish to serve.
Just seems from this armchair that the responses have been 'stovepiped' and lack imagination.
davidbfpo
