Enlisted Essay Contest Second Place Winner, Sponsored by a grant from Booz Allen Hamilton
Training—combined with talent—is honing the weapons of future battles-the ears.
The Defense Language Institute at the U.S. Army's Presidio of Monterey, California, appears to be more of a college campus than a military base. If not for the playing of reveille, retreat, and Taps, it would be easy to forget that we training there are in the military, and not leading the comfortable, sheltered existence of so many of our civilian friends. We sit in classrooms five days a week, do homework, and study. If not for our crisp uniforms and always being prepared to render the proper courtesies to passing officers, we could be college students anywhere, studying anything.
We, however, are not students, and we are not studying just anything. We are members of the U.S. armed forces training to become military linguists. It is our duty to become proficient in Arabic, Korean, Persian Dari, Persian Farsi, Kurmanji, Pashto, Tagalog, and other languages never heard of by many Americans.
Transitional Experience
For most of us, this was our first stop after basic training. It is a place of transition, from raw recruit to skilled linguist. We had little idea of what to expect from our first training base, except that it had to be better than basic. However, new liberties and expanded privileges can be both daunting and dangerous to people who have become accustomed to having every minute of their day planned for them. This is especially true for the youngest enlistees. For many this is the first time on their own. Morning and afternoon formations, physical training, and room inspections help minimize our culture shock and ensure that we continue to uphold the highest personal and professional standards.
Many of us came to Defense Language Institute (DLI) with nothing more than our duffel bags, and the name of the language we had been assigned-and some of us did not have that! We knew that this was an Army post and that we would be training with members of our sister services. We had no idea of how rewarding and challenging it would be. It is amusing to call friends and family back home and spout out our half of the conversation in a foreign language and then translate just for fun. Friends find it less amusing and much more impressive when they discover that it took us two weeks just to master the alphabet.
Different Combat Skills
Some DLI language programs last for a year and a half; yet, upon graduation many of us will have little knowledge of the actual operational activities of the Air Force, Army, Navy, or Marine Corps. We conduct our training in classrooms, not at firing ranges; we sleep in comfortable dormitories, not in tents. Even though wearing battle dress uniforms, it is hard to remember we are soldiers, sailors, Marines or airmen when our duty consists of looking at a blackboard covered with strange looking characters or unfamiliar letters, or listening with great intent to a recording, trying to pick out a few recognizable words here and there.
Sometimes we feel that we are not in the real military. It is easier to think that we are playing dress up and wearing uniforms because putting them on is easier than having to pick out a different outfit every day. Our boots saw more sand and mud in 6, 9, or 13 weeks of basic training than they have in a year here. We can eat at the dining facility or take lunch sitting on an academic building's rooftop balcony with a spectacular view of the incomparable Monterey Bay. Thanks to our location, the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation program provides us with opportunities to scuba dive, kayak, and snorkel. We are close enough to Lake Tahoe to take weekend ski and snowboarding trips. It would be difficult to find a more enjoyable place to serve. After all, this sounds more like a resort than a military installation.
Nevertheless, make no mistake, we are training. Many of us have not touched an M-16 in months; our specialty requires training on an intellectual level. Our ears are our weapons and we are training them to decipher languages essential to the defense of our nation, and the defense of freedom worldwide. We are training them to listen for verbal needles in haystacks, to pick up locations, dates, and plans for specific actions by those who seek to undermine liberty and freedom. Their native tongues are no longer a hiding place, their languages no longer a source of solace and protection. We are listening and we are listening well.
Value of NCOs
We are also listening together. One of the most rewarding aspects of DLI training is the exposure we get to the personnel and protocol of our sister services. We are also fortunate to train among NCOs of all services who are cross-training into the linguist specialty. The military experience the sergeants and petty officers bring to our classes cannot be overstated. After a year in a classroom, being inundated with new vocabulary and grammar patterns, it is easy to forget why we enlisted. It is easy to forget that, eventually, we will be in the field, in a plane, or on a ship, doing crucial work that only we, with our niche training, can accomplish. When we get discouraged and start questioning the path we have chosen, the NCOs are the voice of logic and reason. They remind us of our country's great need for servicemen and women with linguistic talent. Just as not everyone is cut out to fly fighter jets, not everyone has the capacity to become fluent in Chinese or Hebrew.
Those with the talent who have chosen to develop it through our country's military services are a varied breed. We enlisted for different reasons-some to pay for college, some for the challenge, and some to serve our country. Many of us have college degrees and enlisted to get experience that, along with security clearances, will dwarf the most academically loaded of resumes later in the job market. Some chose to receive what is quite simply the best language training in the world.
Whatever the reasons that brought us here, we study, do PT, and relax together. Never was this clearer than at the post's BOSS (Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers) Halloween party in 2004. Hundreds of people crowded into the building, and after a few hours of dancing in heavy costumes, under hot disco lights, a few of us went outside for some fresh air.
Wrapped in the enjoyment of the evening, we had not realized it was nearing 2200. When the time came, the familiar sound of a lone bugler playing Taps filled the air. What a sight to see: people dressed in every manner of costume, from Superman to 1920s flappers and mermaids to men in drag, all standing at attention, rendering the proper courtesies as members of the U.S. armed forces.
Although our current duties are more scholarly than soldierly, there is no doubt that no matter what outfit we disguise ourselves in for an evening, inside we are always in uniform. In our hearts, we are always soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.
Airman First Class Berger, a 2000 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, is training to be a Korean airborne cryptologic linguist at the Defense Language Institute, Presidio of Monterey, California.