Pentagon tells soldiers, "We have ways of making you talk" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

>From the linked article:

"There was a time when the U.S. Army regarded soldiers who spoke a
foreign language as subversive and did its best to silence them or even
purge them from its ranks. "


I never heard that before.  Is my education lacking?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Dennis Baron
> Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 11:39 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Pentagon tells soldiers, "We have ways of making you talk"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> Subject:      Pentagon tells soldiers, "We have ways of
> making you talk"
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
> Pentagon tells soldiers, "We have ways of making you talk"
>
> The Pentagon has ordered all its soldiers to reveal what foreign =20
> languages they speak.. . .
>
> The motto of today's army is "never volunteer" (numquam
> evocati), and =20=
>
> the order to divulge this mission-critical linguistic
> information came =20=
>
> after fewer than 10% of the troops in the all-volunteer army
> filled =20
> out a voluntary survey to determine how many of them speak a
> foreign =20
> language.
>
> Alarmed by the poor turn-out, the Secretary of Defense ordered all =20
> active and reserve troops to complete the language survey by
> March 15 =20=
>
> =96 even if they only speak English. . . .
>
> soldiers identified as being especially proficient in the key =20
> languages of Iraq and Afghanistan will be eligible for foreign-=20
> language pay bonuses and immediate deployment to the war zone
> of their =20=
>
> choice.
>
> Those refusing to take the survey will be offered . . . .
>
> read the rest of this post on the Web of Language: =
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
> ____________________
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>
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