Quote Originally Posted by Brandon Friedman View Post
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.
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.
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...

Meinertzhagen:
... 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.
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.
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.
...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...