Russian at DLI

[Jozef Filipiak]

Mr. Campbell correctly notes that "the needs of the
service" often drive accessions of so-called army
linguists.  More often than not this is the case,
however...

I am one of those so-called army linguists and have
been for over 15 years.  I've studied Polish, Russian,
and BCS at the Defense Language Institute and have not
done so by accident.  There are (or at least have
been) ways of making things happen.

>From 1999 through 2001 I worked in a regional
recruiting command as a Foreign Language Advocate.
That rather ambiguous title was bestowed on those of
us, who were selected to start a new army program
designed to attract more linguistically inclined
and/or talented people into the Military Intelligence
Corp.  We accomplished what the heirarchy wanted from
such a program and it was institutionalized and
remains a part of the army recruiting structure.

I cannot address with authority the current abilities
of the army's Language Advocates, however, when I was
doing that job, we were able to give language
guarantees to certain applicants who brought a lot to
the table.  In other words, a well educated, talented
young person, who wanted nothing more than to study
Russian, and would accept nothing else found a friend
in us.  We could make that happen with a guarantee
written into that individual's enlistment contract.
As I implied, I don't know with certainty that they
still do that, but it is worth a phone call, I'm sure.
 The Senior Language Advocate at US Army Recruiting
Command may be contacted at 1-502-626-1687.

I do not wish to negatively reflect on Mr. Campbell's
observations (it may simply be that times have
changed), but a contract is still a contract, even in
the army.  If a written contract is not honored, that
soldier is entitled to due process and may be released
from any obligation of military service if the
conditions of the contract are not fully met.

It is also true that Russian is no longer as "hot" as
it once was at the Defense Language Institute but it
is still taught and it is by no means among the
smallest departments at the institute.  I'm reluctant
to guess at numbers but there are still many students
in the Russian program.

Now to address your questions specifically, Mr.
Peschio: As I've stated, the Russian program is alive
and well.  It is nowhere near the strength of the
Arabic department for obvious reasons, but I'm fairly
sure it isn't going away any time soon.  Choice is a
funny thing in the military.  If it isn't written into
her contract, your student may well be an accomplished
Arabic speaker after 15 months of training at the
institute.  If the Language Advocate can facilitate
that guarantee, she'll get Russian.

One other possibility (in the case that she cannot get
a guarantee): often students arriving at DLI find that
they've been placed in a language that they wouldn't
have preferred.  If she finds another incoming
student, prior to the beginning of their respective
courses, who is targeted for Russian but wants the
language for which she is being targeted, a switch is
not at all unlikely.  After all, the administrators of
the institute have a specific number of slots to fill
for each language and if those numbers are met a
simple personnel shuffle isn't a show-stopper.

I hope I've given you something useful and I wish your
student the best of luck!

--- Joseph Peschio <peschio at UWM.EDU> wrote:
> Dear SEELANGers,
>
> One of my students wants to do Russian at DLI.  She
> got a very high
> score on the aptitude test, and she's worried that
> she'll end up doing
> Arabic or Farsi (or some other language) instead of
> Russian.  Does
> anyone have a sense of how actively DLI is presently
> training people in
> Russian or about how much choice she would have once
> she enlists?
>
> Many thanks for any info,
> Joe Peschio
> UW--Milwaukee


Peace be with you!
Joe Phillips

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