We still don't grasp the value of translators

[Schmedlap]

What does that say about our priorities?

I think it speaks more to the available supply and our ability to produce them than to our priorities.

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.

I don't know the answer, but here is one observation that I think sheds some light on it:

I know several people who either learned Arabic in college or doled out cash to learn through a language school like Berlitz or similar services. They are all earning buckets of money working as linguists for companies who do business in the mideast. I don't think that any of them have any intention of enlisting in the military to take a 90% pay cut, spend 8 weeks in basic training getting yelled at and doing pushups, then go live in some crappy town outside of a military base, and then deploy to an austere outpost in a dangerous locale, rather than being put up in a hotel in Dubai.

One other observation: the work of a translator seems to combine the dual demands of working in dangerous conditions AND doing a job that does not involve (or at least is not perceived as) movie-like action and adventure. To whom does that appeal? It's one thing to volunteer for a dangerous job in order to fight. It's another to volunteer for a dangerous job to just get shot at. You mentioned combat medics. Most combat medics whom I knew did not just want to treat casualties. They wanted to fight through a gauntlet of withering machine gun fire and slay 20 enemy to get to the casualty and then treat him. That was the vision in their heads when they enlisted. What is the vision in the mind of an individual contemplating joining the Army and then going to DLI? The beach at Monterrey?

Again, I don't know the solution. But I think the problem is a little more complicated than recruiting 13- and 91-series personnel and thus not the best comparison.