“Shaping the Military Linguist’s Journey”
by Command Sergeant Major JoAnn Naumann
JOINT Special Operations Command (JSOC)
Honorary Speaker at the Advance Command Language Program Manager Workshop
Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey, California - 12 September 2023
Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to spend a bit of time with this group, as you talk about language, regional expertise, and culture. I am told that the theme of this year’s workshop is “Shaping the Military Linguist’s Journey”. So, I would like to share my thoughts this morning framed by my journey as a military linguist. I will start by saying this, the person you see here today is the result of a failed plan – but in an uncertain and changing world, success will often be the result of the ability to adapt.
I enlisted in the Army as an Arabic linguist in February 1996. I wanted to learn Arabic and get a clearance and then get out of the Army. I did not plan to be a Soldier. I planned to join the Foreign Service. I did well in the Arabic Basic Course, all Modern Standard Arabic at that time. I went on to AIT and then to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). I spent a lot of time in the field, fighting fake wars using English. We were lucky if we did weekly language training for an hour and got our 4 weeks of training a year. Language training was the first thing that fell off the training calendar. And the better linguists had an even harder time of it – if there was no threat that you would fail the DLPT, there was no need for language training.
I learned my first lesson as a linguist – language was not important in an Infantry Division. Winning field problems was important. That was the wrong answer in 1998, but we didn’t know that yet. It is the wrong answer now, and I hope that we all realize that, especially the people in this room. Language training should be the priority for language dependent careers and close to it for language enabled careers. First and foremost because language is a perishable skill. It must be practiced frequently for maintenance and trained even more often for improvement. And, I would argue, that your best linguists are equally as important – not because they might fail a test – but because we will need them most in a time of crisis. Additionally, many linguists joined the Army to be linguists and Soldiers, maybe even more linguist than Soldier. If we deny them the opportunity to train and utilize their skills, we will lose them. And we cannot afford to lose them.
But I was fortunate because I had an opportunity to attend an immersion in Tunisia for four weeks during my time at Ft Campbell. Then, when I reenlisted, I convinced the Battalion Commander to give me an immersion at a Jordanian University as my reenlistment option. My experiences in language immersion taught me another important lesson as a military linguist - language in a classroom and language in the world are very different things. The classroom is vital to set the foundation. But language is a living thing. Language is how people tell their story, share their culture, and project their feelings. It is influenced by so many factors – the environment, neighboring countries, war and peace, climate, wealth. I could go on. But to understand language, it is critical that you understand people. I was amazed by the times that I couldn’t translate to English, at least not exactly, but I was able to feel and know intuitively what the words meant. This is a part of why regional and cultural education must be combined with language training. Understanding these are critical to genuine understanding of a language. And, at some point in a linguist’s career, it is vital to be where the language is spoken and to experience the richness of language where it is lived. I learned to love Arabic, in all its variations, and all of its people while living and studying in the Middle East and North Africa.
And then the world changed. On September 11, 2001, everything changed for the military. We were no longer an Army at peace. We were going to war and linguistically we were unprepared.
My time at Ft Campbell ended just after 9/11. I left the 101st to join Special Operations. I spent a over a year in training and, honestly, feeling like I was missing out. My opportunity to deploy to Afghanistan came shortly after I completed training in the spring of 2003. I arrived in Central Asia to find that the language I had spent so much time and effort learning was not of much use. There was a small amount of Arabic, but a whole lot of Pashtun, Dari, Uzbek, and various tribal dialects. It is not possible for us to predict every conflict or have experts in every language across the globe. There will be times that the mission set will require change. I took lessons in Uzbek. I was never fluent, but I gained enough proficiency to support the mission.
The world today is even less predictable. We make decisions about what languages to prioritize, but we will be surprised. I expect that over a 20 plus year career, many linguists will find themselves in the same situation I did in Afghanistan. But the skills and mindset that allow you to learn one language will make it easier to learn another. I encourage linguists to be experts in their language, but novices in several. The world is an uncertain place, populations are intermingled, and crises are unpredictable. We must be adaptable.
During my time in Afghanistan, Iraq kicked off. As an Arabic linguist, I was moved to the Iraq mission and was excited for my opportunity to really use my language skills. I quickly learned that an Arabic linguist and an Iraqi linguist were not necessarily the same thing. And once I felt comfortable with Baghdadi Arabic, I was moved to Mosul, also not the same thing. From a mission standpoint, I was experiencing the living language that I had fallen in love with about five years earlier. I spent over a year in Iraq over the next two and half. I started to dream in Iraqi. This was the first time that I truly experienced what it is to be immersed – Arabic made sense to me in Arabic. Most linguists will never get the chance to experience language in this way, nor would I wish these circumstances on anyone. But this is when I experienced my greatest purpose as a linguist. The military will never be able to pay me more than the private sector. The military gave me purpose that is worth far more than a larger paycheck. Those days in Iraq, I truly became a military linguist – using my language skills to accomplish the mission. These opportunities are not always so easy to find, but we must look for them if we want to keep linguists inspired.
Over the remainder of my years as an operator, I deployed to Yemen, Jordan, and throughout Africa. I experienced many cultures, many versions of Arabic and other languages. Everywhere I went, I experienced people. In my opinion, this is why language, regional expertise, and culture – as a trifecta – are so important in the military. Ultimately, conflict is always about people. A linguist can translate. But a linguist can also understand motivations. A linguist can respect culture. A linguist can build relationships. A linguist can guide strategy. None of these things are about memorizing vocabulary – that is only a foundation. Language is a living thing, and this is how we must learn it.
Most recently, I found myself in Korea – one place I never expected to be assigned as an Arabic linguist. I was not hired for my language skills, but for my ability to think and relate and problem solve – all skills that I did learn as a military linguist. When I found out that I was going to Korea, I used an app to learn a few basics and I picked up a little more Korean during my time there. Even being able to say hello and thank you to someone in their native language goes a long way in building rapport. Simple words, but what they say is “I respect you and your country and your culture enough to take a few minutes and learn to greet you.” Lessons not just for a linguist, but for anyone traveling for work or pleasure. Relationships will be ever more important for the military linguist and for our nation. Our partnerships around the world are critical to deterring our adversaries. Partnerships are built on understanding – understanding of language and culture. The very things that you work to enhance every day.
I don’t work as a linguist anymore, but I do credit my career as a linguist with much of my success. I was good at my job and that is certainly a part of my success. Being a linguist also taught me how to think critically and creatively. It helped me as an analyst to understand motivations. It allowed me to appreciate people and respect their cultures. All of these not only made me a good linguist, but these skills also built me as a leader. There are many future leaders across the force of military linguists and the group assembled here today will be a part of their journey.
I joined the Army in 1996. It was a peacetime Army. I had no expectation that I would go to war. The world changed. That change was simple. The world we live in today is dynamic; far more challenging than the world when I enlisted. For the first time in generations, we face an adversary that threatens the American way of life and the world order. The National Defense Strategy defines China as the pacing threat and Russia as the acute threat. Yet we still find ourselves fighting extremist violence in the Middle East and Africa. There are still threats emanating from North Korea and Iran. The United States is focused on building partners and allies. Every one of these missions require language, regional expertise, and cultural skills. Military linguists will remain critical in understanding the threats and in building relationships with partners. The languages we need to focus on will likely shift as we see conflicts rise and fall in gray zones. This is the world that you live in as a member of the LREC community.
And so, I charge all of you with this, you must shape the journey of the military linguists in your formations. One final lesson that I learned in all of my deployments and travels is that we will never be perfectly ready. If we undervalue language, regional expertise, and culture, we will fall even further behind. Language cannot be the first thing to fall off the training calendar. You need to change that culture. Command teams and leaders need to change that culture. Encourage linguists to take opportunities – learn outside of the language program and seek opportunities. Work with your command teams to prioritize and incentivize language. Use the people in your formations with more experience to share their stories.
As a military it is critical that we professionalize the linguists in our force. The one thing the military provided me, that no other organization could have, is purpose. We need to find ways to do that for all our linguists. You are a critical part of that effort.
I ask that you use your time together this week to share best practices. Learn the latest on policies, training, testing, and pay. But do not limit yourself to these things. If my Battalion Commander had not agreed to that immersion training, I would have left the Army after 4 years. One person, one decision, is why I am here 27 years after that first enlistment. It is not going to be easy, but you could change the future of your service. Thank you for everything you do for this community. Use this week to build your network, learn from one another, and continue to build the effectiveness of your program and the military linguist.
Anyone who read a recent article by Lt. Col. Bill Nance, published by the Modern War Institute, was witness to a heavy criticism of not just the Army’s performance in its advisory mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, but the overall ways in which the service trains partner forces. The new security force assistance brigades, he argues, not only don’t resolve the problems, but double down on the same flawed systemic approach. His arguments are compelling. Despite some success stories, the US Army has failed to adequately develop competent and professional partners across the globe. Lt. Col. Nance attributes this failure to various factors, two of which are essential to understanding our current struggle to build partner’s capacities.
First, he explains how “highly motivated Americans will work around and through any problems their partners encounter to ensure mission success.” This is how you ultimately end up with an Iraqi Army crumbling before the advance of a smaller and weaker ISIS force in 2014. The culture of America’s officers and noncommissioned officers is mission driven. Couple this with our general ignorance of foreign cultures and you get a situation where American aid is only as valuable as the size and capacity of the American force that accompanies it. Remove the Americans and you are left with a less than optimal local capacity to deter aggression and win conflicts.
Secondly, and most importantly for Lt. Col. Nance’s prescriptions, the United States dedicates too many resources to tactical and technical advising while neglecting opportunities to advise and influence partners at the institutional level. He argues that by focusing our efforts at exporting components of our professional military education system we would be able to build stronger relationships and achieve higher levels of trust. This endeavor, he concludes, represents “the true forty-year mission, and one that will actually build capacity.”
This much, at least, is not a controversial statement: the key to building partnerships and partner capacity is trust and mutual understanding. You don’t get there by deploying a revolving door of tactical leaders who execute their mission, redeploy, and then are never heard from again. Expanding institutional and organizational interactions is decisive to the advising mission—and to building and maintaining influence. Evaluating and updating our own institutions, however, is just as decisive. Facing the deficiencies and failures outlined by Lt. Col. Nance, we must do more than simply expand the foreign area officer or Special Forces programs. If building partnerships and partner capacity is a critical mission for the US Army in the twenty-first century, then it must become a central component of our organizational culture.
Former US diplomat Suzanne Nossel defines smart power as “knowing that the United States’ own hand is not always its best tool: U.S. interests are furthered by enlisting others on behalf of U.S. goals.” Given our global ambitions, responsibilities, and challenges, and our necessarily limited resources, developing the strategic capacity to “win friends and influence people,” in the sage words of Dale Carnegie, is critical. Gen. Joseph Dunford has thus identified “the network of U.S. alliances and partnerships as our strategic center of gravity.” That makes building and maintaining partnerships a critical capacity. So why are we doing so poorly at executing a mission that has been identified by the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as critical to our strategic success?
Part of the answer is simple: we’re Americans. And as Americans, we have to confront the phenomenon of what Paul R. Pillar calls “the American prism.” A 28-year veteran of the CIA and a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, Dr. Pillar argues that “a combination of geography, history, and politics has carved the American prism,” which prevents us from understanding the rest of the world. We remain culturally isolated from the rest of the world, despite America’s rise as a global superpower: “The internet is an American creation, global pop culture is disproportionally American culture, and English is the closest thing the world has to a lingua franca,” Dr. Pillar notes. As a result, Americans in general have little familiarity with foreign cultures.
Even on the simple mechanical level of understanding and communicating in a foreign language we are struggling. Only about one-fourth of Americans can carry on a conversation in a foreign language, Dr. Pillar points out, compared to over half of Europeans. More alarming still, according to the Pew Research Center, a majority of American high school students are not even enrolled in foreign language study. Similarly, American citizens are far less likely than their counterparts from other developed countries to have travel experience in foreign countries. This lack of exposure to other languages and cultures clearly handicaps us in our ability to build effective and durable partnerships. Are we doing enough as an institution to overcome this deficit and ensure American officers and noncommissioned officers have the skills they need to engage and influence foreign actors around the globe?
The US Army provides outstanding opportunities for foreign language training and foreign immersion for some of its officers. These opportunities, however, are offered to only a small portion of the force. Most officers, furthermore, are targeted for such training only after several years of active-duty service. Waiting until an officer is thirty years old to send him to intensive language training and a year abroad immersed in a foreign culture might make sense from a Human Resources Command perspective, but it is less than optimal from a pedagogical one. If we want to have a real impact on the force we need to prioritize foreign language and cultural acuity training at the earliest possible opportunity: pre-commissioning education.
In the nineteenth century, West Point was founded and eventually developed into the premiere academic institution for science and engineering in the United States. The father of West Point, Sylvanus Thayer, assembled “a great faculty; in the fields of physics, engineering, and mathematics the best in the United States.” Thayer designed the school around mathematics and engineering because these were the essential tools of military science at the time; West Point would address the needs of the nation by providing officers with the skills they needed to accomplish their mission. But if the nature of warfare has changed since the nineteenth century, then perhaps it is time that we reevaluate and update the curricula at the service academies.
While the service academies provide world-class foreign language courses and offer some cadets and midshipmen the opportunity to participate in study abroad programs, foreign study is not emphasized as if it were critical to achieving our strategic goals. West Point only requires two semesters of foreign language training to graduate. For most this means that they will graduate from the prestigious academy and commission as second lieutenants without having achieved even a basic level of foreign-language proficiency and having participated in, at best, a limited (and in most cases not immersive) cross-cultural program of study. The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis does a little better: they require midshipmen there to take two years of foreign language study as part of their curriculum. Two years of foreign language study to commission as an ensign in the world’s preeminent expeditionary force, however, is still less than optimal.
We ought to ask the questions: Are our minimum standards for foreign language and cultural education too low? How many young officers from our premiere public institutions are graduating with the basic skills they need to engage and influence partners? How can we expand these programs and give them their proper place of priority within the curricula of the service academies?
Given all the other demands we make for academic, physical, and ethical excellence, it seems obvious that we should demand these young men and women help lead the way in breaking the American prism and creating a more linguistically and culturally fluent joint force. Resources spent at this echelon and with this cohort of young leaders will yield exponential benefits across three different areas: foreign institutional relationship, personal relationships, and officer development. By sending our cadets and midshipmen in greater numbers to foreign military academies, we will influence those foreign militaries over time. These young men and women will also form personal relationships with future leaders from these institutions. These relationships will form the basis of wider organizational ties between us and our partners at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. And finally, our cadets and midshipmen participating in foreign-exchange programs will gain essential skills in navigating and understanding foreign cultures. The military would have a deep bench of officers (and eventually even deeper, if language and cultural education requirements at other commissioning sources are also strengthened) ready to execute the difficult but decisive task of building partnerships that we can depend on and leverage to meet our national objectives.
Lt. Col. Nance’s evaluation and prescriptions regarding the deficiencies of the US Army’s efforts to develop and maintain partnerships are correct. We do need to focus on advising and influencing allies and partners at the institutional level. This is critical to our global mission. But we also need to look at ourselves and at our own institutional culture. If we want to fight and win in a complex, twenty-first-century threat environment, cross-cultural acuity will be as important to us as math and engineering were to our nineteenth-century predecessors. We need to rewrite it into our organizational DNA; it should be as imperative for an officer to understand and have experience in cross-cultural relations as it is to prepare and present an operations order. Strengthening minimum requirements for foreign-language training and expanding study abroad opportunities and participation rates should be an easy starting point.
Capt. George H. Calhoun commissioned as an infantry officer through Officer Candidate School in 2009. He deployed to Wardak, Afghanistan as rifle platoon leader in 2010 with 2-4 IN and commanded a rifle company and headquarters company with 1-24 IN from 2016 to 2018. He is currently studying for his Master’s Degree in International Policy and Practice at George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs as part of his training to become a foreign area officer assigned to the Latin America region.