… and are they stuck with continual Pacific Rim duty?
The recent news coverage of the Chinese Navy assisting in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines airplane has me wondering how the US Navy communicates with Chinese Naval vessels when their paths cross. (Google turned up an incident between the USS Cowpens and a Chinese vessel in December but it wasn’t clear to me how much communication was attempted in the first place.)
Does any US Navy ship being deployed near China have to have Chinese speaking personnel on board? And are there enough to “go around?”
Here’s a wild stab in the dark: The People’s Liberation Army Navy (yes, that is its real name) vessels involved in the search have English speakers aboard as do the Republic of Korea Navy vessels.
About 4% of the Navy is Asian so hats about 11,000 Asians and who knows how many are fluent in Chinese. I met a few when I was in who had english as a second language.
Any ways, the ships are probably not conversing with each other directly for this effort. It’s a task force and it’s being handled at a much higher level and each ship/country is given its orders from their own members who are assigned to the task force.
All branches retain banks of linguists/interpreters. They have strategists planning where everyone is needed at what time. Some are on-call internationally.
I just went on a tour of the US Naval Academy. They offer only two foreign language majors - Chinese and Arabic. I suppose that shows the degree of interest the Navy has in those two areas of the world.
Since we’re talking about communications operators, my guess would be that they all converse in English since that’s the go-to language almost universally in tech fields. But that’s just an assumption.
Also the International Code of Signals allows communication without a common language, when both parties have an issue of the code in their language.
Examples:
UV 4 2 = “You are violating the conditions of innocent passage through the territorial sea by engaging in acts aimed at collecting information to the prejudice of our defense or security. Request you comply with the conditions of innocent passage through the territorial sea.”
MUO = “Patient should strain down and you exert steady but gentle pressure on lower part of the abdomen but not on the womb to help expulsion of the placenta.”
And people who get accepted into the Naval Academy have to have solid academic credentials just to get on the list to be considered. One of the highly recommended course of studies is two years of a foreign language. Typically in the US public schools that means Spanish or French which doesn’t come up too much in a military altercation anymore . . . but you never know. So it doesn’t even make sense to offer those two since most students have already covered them; surprised they don’t include Russian.
There are a certain number of languages, Chinese and Arabic among them, which the Navy actually gives “Foreign Language Proficiency Pay” to native speakers who enlist. These personnel can be used as interperters, or in a surveillence function. Pay ranges from $25 to $1000 per month based on language and proficency, but according to this very recent announcement, these bonuses were recently cut. http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/career/language_culture/Pages/NewAnnouncements.aspx
Language as a dedicated skill is not taught at the USNA. Translators have the enlisted Navy rating of CT, or Communications Technician, and the school is (or was) in Monterrey, CA. I believe it’s a one-year school. It’s quite likely that they have a Chinese interpreter on board one of those ships, even if it’s only as a temporary assignment.
There are also government contractors, with the necessary security clearances, who work for the DoD and who are either employed full-time or as needed. If proficiency in Chinese, Malay or anything other language is required, the DoD can simply call the companies in question and secure the services of a translator.
This would be especially critical in situations involving technical translations as someone simply being able to speak Chinese would be of limited use in translating technical terms or concepts in most situations.
So it doesn’t even make sense to offer those two since most students have already covered them; surprised they don’t include Russian.