Jed,

You are, again, correct. Heck I went through 10 months of Modern Standard Arabic and graduated with honors. The Army wanted to send me to Korea; I managed to coax Turkey out of them as at least it was a Muslim country. A year later I was back taking 6 months of French and again graduated with honors--as preparation for Sudan where I spent 5 months immersed in their CGSC striggling with Sudanese (a derivative of Egyptian) dialect. The first time I spoke French was 9 months after arriving in Sudan when I went to Zaire. All of this occurred from 1982 to 1984; as a FAO the next time I drew an assignement (aside from a tour as a UN observer in Lebanon and Egypt--an assignment that did not require language skills) was in 1993 when I was headed to Zaire as DATT. I got a few weeks of French brush up.

Language is a tool and mastery is rarely achieved by any government agency. Cultural awareness goes beyond language and is an art. Neither come in a IPOD-like language translator or even 10 months in a classroom. They take years to develop.

best

Tom