Writing for the AP, Jason Straziuso published a troubling piece Thursday morning called, "Many translators unfit in any language." Here's an excerpt:
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?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.”
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.
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