Quote:
Originally Posted by The Reaper
Makes me glad to have been a 7th Group guy who spoke Spanish.  TR |
Me too!
Language is painful. Dedicated Special Forces Soldiers will recognize that language competence is as important as weapons and MOS skills and they'll invest the effort required to become proficient in their assigned language. Those guys will reap the rewards further down the road. Opportunities for fun, travel and adventure will abound as capabilities currently being developed mature. The ones who don't get on board will suffer because assignments, schools, promotions, and bonuses will be linked to test scores. It will be tough because there's nothing fair about who gets CAT I and who gets CAT IV, about who benefits from a CAT I language spoken in friendly tropical paradises and who gets stuck with a language only spoken in a country they'll never get to visit short of wartime deployment so they can never benefit from immersion opportunities, etc. etc. Add that not every SFG(A) dedicates the same effort to their language program (leadership issue!) and expectations (shaped by the current training model designed to get a 1/1 on the OPI) are unrealistic, it's no wonder frustrations are overwhelming whatever minimal enthusiasm exists. Add that the Regimental program which is designed and funded to SUSTAIN the 1/1 for the CLANG assigned/taught in SWCS is now being forced to provide initial acquisition training for new languages (using sub-standard contracted instructors on a grossly abbreviated schedule [12 weeks to teach a CAT IV from 0 to 1/1? GET F***ING REAL!]). I could go on for pages. All it would do is piss me off and frustrate you guys. Besides - I would run out of bourbon before I finished. The only good thing is we have a phenomenal team running the Regimental Language Program. (Those of you waiting for language pay should check your pay stubs in a month or so for validation!) They've gotten admin contractors into all the language labs and they're doing their best to ensure the contracts servicing your requirements are the best we can get given the f'ed up contracting system. A lot of things have to change for it to get better and - bluntly - it will NEVER be perfect. Too many hotspots (that are always changing), each with its own language, not enough SF Soldiers to cover everything, and never enough time to train them in the appropriate language when a new crisis explodes. Oh well - enough pissing and moaning for one post. 
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A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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