# Deployed American soldier's language training
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 2, 2016, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272 "2016-06-02T01:36:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272/21 "2016-06-03T19:31:49Z")
> [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](#):
>
> That’s what interpreters are for. The interactions between the lowest ranking soldiers and foreign civilians may have gotten somewhat more civilized over the centuries, but it’s as simple as it’s ever been: smile and hand out candy, or threaten to kill.
But how do you know which to do, unless you can understand what they’re saying?
And who are those interpreters? US soldiers trained for that role?
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### Author:  [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272/22 "2016-06-03T19:55:24Z")
> [@scr4](#):
>
> But how do you know which to do, unless you can understand what they’re saying?
>
> And who are those interpreters? US soldiers trained for that role?
Sometimes they’ll hire locals or folks from other countries who speak the same language. If you read or watch Generation Kill, you’ll encounter a fellow named Meesh, a Kuwaiti pothead who hates Iraqis on principle and took a job to act as an interpreter for a Marine Recon battalion during the invasion of Iraq.
One big problem locals hired as interpreters have faced is the danger of retaliation from folks who don’t like the US. There’s been a huge backlog of these folks in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to get visas to move to the United States and having to deal with all sorts of government bureaucracy from a different continent.
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### Author:  [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272/23 "2016-06-03T22:46:17Z")
@Chiuahua, language training is required for Special Forces actually.
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### Author:  [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2016, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272/24 "2016-06-04T12:53:21Z")
> [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](#):
>
> That’s what interpreters are for. The interactions between the lowest ranking soldiers and foreign civilians may have gotten somewhat more civilized over the centuries, but it’s as simple as it’s ever been: smile and hand out candy, or threaten to kill.
This is one of the more profoundly ignorant things I have ever heard.
Modern soldiers are expected to do more than stand in a line and fire three balls a minute.
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### Author:  [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272/25 "2016-06-06T02:23:34Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#):
>
> My career as a linguist was unexceptional. I was in one of the “optional MOS’s” and I went to DLI for Korean. After graduating, I spent a year in South Korea, which included a month of language immersion study at Kyunghee Dehak. It was a cool experience. After that, of course, I went to places like Iraq and Afghanistan where my Korean was of no use at all, and I have since forgotten much of it.
Were you part of an MI unit, or simply dispatched with some other random unit simply because you were a linguist?
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### Author:  [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2016, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272/26 "2016-06-06T11:36:06Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#):
>
> This is one of the more profoundly ignorant things I have ever heard.
>
> Modern soldiers are expected to do more than stand in a line and fire three balls a minute.
They might be expected to, but they’re pretty damn lousy at it. I say this as a relatively recent combat arms vet.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deployed-american-soldiers-language-training/756272/27 "2016-06-06T13:29:42Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#):
>
> My career as a linguist was unexceptional. I was in one of the “optional MOS’s” and I went to DLI for Korean. After graduating, I spent a year in South Korea, which included a month of language immersion study at Kyunghee Dehak. It was a cool experience.
How was it and when did you go through DLI? I’m asking because the current official (official by the South Korean government, that is) Romanization for 경기대학교 would be _Gyeonggi Daehakgyo_. Another reason I’m asking is that I’m considering taking an intensive Korean course between jobs in the near future.
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