[lg policy] Demand Grows for Squad-level Linguist Program for Pashto

[Harold Schiffman]

via Edling-list

Demand Grows for Squad-level Linguist Program

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

MONTEREY, Calif., Oct. 25, 2011 – Last year, 74 soldiers at Fort
Campbell, Ky., became the first to participate in a new program that
provides short-term, intensive language and cultural training to
deploying military members.


The general purpose force program wasn’t designed for professional
linguists or interpreters, explained Sam Garzaniti, who manages it at
the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center here.

Rather, the program provides basic Dari or Pashto instruction, taught
by native Afghan speakers, to help nonlinguists -- military police,
medics, truck drivers and infantrymen, among them, -- operate more
effectively on the ground in Afghanistan.

Retired Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal came up with the concept when
he commanded the International Security Assistance Force to create
what deployed forces refer to as “squad-designated linguists” able to
communicate with the Afghan people. Graduates of the program proved so
beneficial to their deployed units that it’s now growing by leaps and
bounds.

Fort Carson, Colo., one of three pilot sites when the program stood up
last year, soon sent almost 300 soldiers to a condensed version of the
training before they deployed. The vast majority studied Dari, with
the other 49 soldiers learning Pashto. Fort Drum, N.Y., also in the
pilot program, sent 55 10th Mountain Division soldiers to its initial
general purpose force training.

“After that, it has just been a steady flow of classes,” Garzaniti
said. Schofield Barracks in Hawaii signed on to the program in
September 2010. Fort Bragg, N.C., followed earlier this year.

The Marines jumped on board, too, with Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Camp
Pendleton, Calif., joining the program last fall.

To date, about 1,000 service members have completed the program,
Garzaniti said. He expects more enrollment in the program as word
about it spreads.

Classes typically run 13 to 16 weeks, with students spending as much
as six hours a day in the classroom, in addition to practice sessions
and mandatory study halls.

Unlike other Defense Language Institute programs, the general purpose
force curriculum focuses on listening and speaking skills, Garzaniti
said. Students learn vocabulary and verb tenses and how to construct
sentences. Then they practice using them in various scenarios similar
to what they might encounter in Afghanistan.

“It’s a very-focused program,” Garzaniti said. “We’re not going for
global proficiency. We are going for tactical functionality.”

Graduates aren’t meant to take the place of professional linguists and
interpreters, he said. For example, they typically aren’t able to
discuss the news with local Afghans. They can, however, ask for
directions or share pleasantries over tea or during key leader
engagements.

They also have the skills to ask questions and understand responses at
roadblocks and read street signs and even graffiti on walls that may
provide clues about insurgent activities.

“That makes them a force multiplier,” Garzaniti said. “When they go
out and do their operations, whatever they may be, having somebody
there in the front able to at least greet [the Afghans] and lay
groundwork for something makes a huge difference. They are somebody to
help.”

Returning units report that even limited language and cultural skills
have helped them in their mission. “We’ve gotten a lot of good
feedback from people who have been in country saying, ‘Hey, this works
absolutely great,’” Garzaniti said. “They tell you that you speak two
words and you see a face light up.”

A professional linguist himself who retired from the Army last year,
Garzaniti said he has seen firsthand the impact language ability had
on the Afghans we encountered.

“They know you took the time to learn at least a few words, a phrase,
two phrases,” he said. “It makes all the difference in the world.”

More units are signing up as the message spreads about general purpose
force training availability, Garzaniti said.

“I definitely don’t see any slowdown in business,” he said. “As more
commanders hear the good stories from our brigades and battalions and
companies that have used these people [during deployments], we see
them starting to put their hands up and asking, ‘What about me?’”

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=65806

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