Pentagon launches push for better language skills

The Defense Department announced Wednesday "a major initiative" to develop foreign language experts among the uniformed and civilian workforce.

"We simply must develop a greater capacity for languages that reflect the demands of this century," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon press release. "No technology delivers this capability, it is a truly human skill that our forces must have to win, and that we must have to keep the peace."

The initiative comes one month after a Government Accountability Office report found the Pentagon had dismissed 322 military personnel with critical language skills-in Arab, Farsi or Korean-for violating the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" policy on homosexuality.

Pentagon officials outlined the initiative in the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap. That document described the establishment of a Defense Language Office in the Pentagon. That office will report to David S. Chu, the defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness.

The road map set forward several other mandates, such as the establishment of language crash courses for deploying forces.

"Acquire or create off-the-shelf products that are rapidly available to forces," the road map stated. "Develop tailored, modular, predeployment regional and language familiarization courses."

Pentagon officials have slated those products to reach full operational capacity by September 2007.

The report also made a number of short-term recommendations, including a call to boost the Defense Department's Foreign Language Proficiency Pay.

"Identify and recognize the value of personnel achieving and maintain the highest levels of proficiency in critical languages by paying a substantially increased FLPP," the report noted. The report also directed on officials to "address disparity between active and reserve component FLPP" and "explore other incentives to encourage language maintenance and improvement."

Those reforms were scheduled to be complete by December 2005.

Pending legislative approval, the report also directed officials to develop a pilot program for a Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps. The report underscores the fact that language skills are currently underappreciated in the military.

"Retention rates are lower among military personnel with language skills in some services, primarily due to poor linguist utilization," according to the road map. Foreign Area Officer "jobs are viewed as career ending in some service officer communities."