Kit and caboodle

[Landau, James]

When you were at the Presidio it was still "the Army Language School",
but by 1969, when I was drafted, it had become the "Defense Language
Institute" and had at least three branches, the one at the Presidio, the
one at Fort Bliss which as far as I know taught only Vietnamese, and one
somewhere in Washington DC, which I know of solely because every once in
a while I ran into a student from there.

I was really commenting on how odd it appeared, at first glance, to see
Hebrew and Hindi among a list of languages that the Armed Forces
obviously need interpreters in (Arabic, languages of Afghanistan,
Korean, Chinese).  Of course it may just mean that the Hebrew and Hindi
instructors currently at DLI are retiring and need to be replaced.

Of ADS interest is your usage of "human resource".  This was correct
Army jargon circa 1960?  I am wondering whether there is any connection
with the trend, starting I don't when but definitely later than the
60's, to rename Personnel Departments as "Human Resources".

Do svidan'a!

   - Jim Landau

-----Original Message-----
From: Wilson Gray [mailto:hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 1:18 AM
Subject: Re: Kit and caboodle

During the Vietnam era, using 1960 as the official start date of that
era, since service on or after 1 Jan 1960 qualified one for the
Vietnam-Era GI Bill, there was no Defense Language Institute. There was
the U.S. Army Language School at the Presidio of Monterey, California.
In addition to the human resources of the Army, the Language School,
during the Vietnam era and earlier, also served the human resources of
the Navy and those of the Marine Corps. The Air Force had its own
language school, then located at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. There
was, at that time and, no doubt, still is, the Foreign Service Language
Institute, located somewhere in the Greater Washington, DC, Metropolitan
Area.

Back in the day, the ALS taught more than eighty languages, some having
only a single student. All the languages that you mention were among
those taught in those days. In order to get a handle on our foreign
policy by examining the Language Institute, one would have to know how
many students were studying a given language. In my day, the ALS had two
divisions, "Russian" and "Other Languages." There were about 400
military human rresources studying Russian, which was subdivided into
three separate courses of varying lengths. The other
79 or so languages had about 400 students in toto. I'd call that a
pretty good clue as to the foreign policy of the day.

I'm well aware of the reincarnation of the old ALS as the new Defense
Language Institute, West Coast Branch, and its Web site has been among
my bookmarks since there've been bookmarks. I last visited the Presidio,
as an old grad, in 1979. Things had already changed so much that I was
nearly unable to find my way into the Presidio. The elimination of
Private Bolio Drive, in my day, the main entrance to the Presidio, was a
real disappointment. it was one of the few major boulevards on a major
military base not only named after an enlisted man, but also after one
of such low rank.

As for the question as to whether there are several language institutes
or merely one with several branches, well, that strikes me as merely
splitting hairs. Macht es nichts, to coin a phrase.

-Wilson

On 5/15/07, Landau, James <James.Landau at ngc.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Landau, James" <James.Landau at NGC.COM>
> Subject:      Kit and caboodle
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> My daughter asked me for information on the origin of the phrase "kit
> and caboodle".  Can anybody help
>
> Aside to Wilson Gray:  there is only one Defense Language Institute,
> although during Vietnam it had branches at Fort Bliss, Texas and
> somewhere in the Washington DC area..  Its Web site,
> http://www.dliflc.edu/, certainly seems to show it is alive and well:
> "DLIFLC is home to more than 3,500 military and civilian students
> annually and employs over 1,600 faculty and staff. We are in the
> business of teaching language to the finest group of students in the
> United States and welcome the opportunity to show the public why we
> are the premier foreign language institute in the world."
>
> On the Web site is the announcement:
> "Now Hiring Teachers for Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hebrew, Hindi, Korean,

> Kurdish, Pashto, and Persian."
> What this says about future US foreign policy is unclear.  Arabic,
> Kurdish, Dari, and Pashto are spoken in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they
> are no surprise.  Neither is Korean or Chinese.  Hindi seems a little
> unlikely - we don't have troops stationed in India, do we?  I'd expect

> more interest in Urdu than in Hindi, but maybe they already have Urdu
> staff.  Hebrew also seems unlikely - are we expecting to be involved
> in another Arab-Israeli war? =20
>      - James A. Landau
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
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-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens
------
The tongue has no bones, yet it breaks bones.

                                           Rumanian proverb

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