Army requiring disclosure of language skills

[unhappycamper]

Army requiring disclosure of language skills
Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, January 9,2009

Soldiers worldwide have been ordered to complete a mandatory self-assessment of their foreign language skills after the Army failed to get enough volunteers to participate in a program.

All active, Reserve and National Guard soldiers — even those who speak only English — have until March 15 to finish the assessment, U.S. Army Europe announced in a press release Wednesday.

USAREUR has required its soldiers to take the self-assessment since October 2007, though it was only voluntary for most of the Army. The service extended the mandate to the rest of the force to meet a Defense Department requirement that the services identify personnel with foreign language skills.

"Given the relevance of these skills to our mission, a full accounting of the foreign language capability currently in the force is essential," reads a message posted on the Army Web site Army Knowledge Online.

Less than 10 percent of Army troops have taken the self-assessment since it became available in May 2007.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59889

[GodlessBiker]

1. They lower their admissions standards but expect recruits to have learned a foreign language?

I am sure there are many Hispanic-Americans serving in the armed forces who know Spanish, but is that a terrible need now?

Latin anyone? French? And they fired all of the gay translators. Idiots.

[rakeeb]

2. This Army-wide self-assessment was neccesary because

there has never been a requirement in place to determine second language skills among all of the rest of the recuits who are not enlisting as lingists and who have not taken a DLPT.

And the Army didn't discharge all of the gay linguists, just the ones that no longer complied with the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

[GodlessBiker]

3. The "Don't Ask" portion of the policy is routinely violated by the military.

And the military gets what it deserves if it expels even one linguist, particularly one who speaks Arabic, because he or she is gay. I'm sure the military is not looking for Spanish speakers. They have shot themselves, and us, in the foot, and are now trying to hurry up and correct the mistakes they has made.

[rakeeb]

4. Really? Can you point to one of these cases that was

"Don't ask" as opposed to "Don't tell"?
Got the numbers on this one? Ballpark?

This is not a fix of the minority of gay linguists that they fired for violating policy by coming out... it's a fix for finding out how many soldiers have a language that wasn't tracked as of yet.

(btw... as arcane as most AR's are, has the military fired more folks for coming out of the closet or committing adultery? One has always been against UCMJ, the other has been modified to allow folks to serve without preaching...)