USAF FAO Notes

CAPTAIN Joseph E. Pilkus, III, USAF

Language is the cornerstone of the FAO

During the month of May, I traveled to St Petersburg, Russia, as one of the students of our office's Language and Area Studies Immersion Program. Throughout the four week program, the students gained insight into Russian culture, advanced their knowledge of the region's history and politics, and resided with a home stay family, to truly round out the experience at the personal level. Most importantly, every student benefited from speaking, reading, writing, and listening to the Russian language on a daily basis. There is absolutely no substitute for immersion training.

Despite this apparent fact, the government continues to fund programs and institutions that perform well at providing initial language training. Unfortunately, it falls woefully short of the mark for assisting advanced students in maintaining or enhancing their skills. We (specifically Air Force) need to break the old paradigm of "just-in-time" training for our "experts". Training a linguist, or more specifically, training a Foreign Area Officer requires time, and a lot of it. Unlike other career fields, FAOs are not developed in a few weeks or even a few months, similar to our training for pilots, intelligence officers, or missileers.

The U.S. suffers from "chronic parochialism". In short, we do not expose our youth to languages at an early age akin to our European allies. Apparently, "They'll speak English" is the thought for the next millennium, despite the ever-shrinking globe, where language is vital in all areas, including science, technology, business, and increasingly, the arts. To break this unfortunate chain, we need to educate our young, but at our level, in the military, we need to "rethink" our training of language proficient officers.

As one senior Air Force officer stated, "the money you receive for your DLPT scores isn't going to further your training--it's a symbolic gesture". The gesture resonates a degree of pride for a job well done. The job--maintaining one's proficiency in a foreign language--is something we need to nurture throughout the career of the officer. As anyone with language skills can attest--over time your skills will atrophy. It is a perishable commodity, and we do little to foster the enhancement of this commodity.

Now, at the dawn of the next century, we need individuals who possess not only the knowledge of foreign lands, customs and cultures, and their interaction with other regions and the international community, but more importantly we need individuals who can converse intelligently with other members of that community. During my immersion experience, I heard a joke that I found more disturbing than humorous: What do you call someone who can speak three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who can speak one language? American. Think about it.

2000, Foreign Area Officer Association
Springfield, Virginia
Maintained by LTC Steve Gotowicki.
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