The U.S. Army spent something like a quarter-million dollars teaching me Arabic and then sent me to Fort Hood to change oil in Humvees for two years. Some of us were lucky enough to get temporary duty (TDY) overseas. Most of us deployed at one time or another, but we didn’t really get to immerse ourselves. The Army never offered the chance to learn cultural nuances, microgeography, and linguistic variations. Annual language refresher courses of three weeks were not enough.
The result was that during the first Gulf War, an atrocious number of American military translators weren’t worth a damn. By the time I got to the service, the Army had zeroed in on what it thought was the problem, namely the language school and not the fact most soldiers spent most of their time doing anything but practicing language and cultural skills.
To make things worse, the Bush administration stopped State Department hiring above the level of attrition. Incredibly, this happened before 9/11 and was never reversed until the end of Bush’s term. At no time was there ever a national effort to teach Americans the languages of a region where America had just set down the stakes of empire. Instead, the work was contracted out — like so much else in America’s war in Central Asia, and with the same results.So I’m not surprised that a whistleblower has told ABC news that a quarter of private contractors hired for translation don’t speak their target languages. Nor am I surprised to hear this:
Civilian translators have for nearly a decade been playing a crucial if unsung role in the Afghanistan war, embedding with troops as they have moved through the countryside, helping soldiers gather information from local villagers, and attempting to spread the message of security, moderation and peace that undergirds the U.S. presence there. Some Afghan veterans have rated the value of a skilled interpreter as equal to that of a working weapon or sturdy body armor. (Emphasis mine)
Here we are, almost nine years to the day since 9/11, and the most common languages being taught in American high schools are French, Spanish, German, and Latin — one of which is dead, and only one of which is useful but already has any number of native-born American speakers. There has been no move to encourage universities to teach Pashto, Dari, Urdu, or anything like them.
Without good translation, American troops will make mistakes. They will misinterpret.
I’ll never forget the time I got called to the front gate of the Task Force 2-12 kabaal and found a sweating, scared-looking truck driver. His hard Gs and long hair told me he was Egyptian; the frowning, suspicious sergeant running the gate that morning told me the driver was refusing to open a cargo cabinet on the outside of the rig.
His truck carried ice. Bear in mind: this is precious cargo to American soldiers inhabiting the Kuwaiti desert during the dead, dry, oven-hot and sand-blasting month of July. So not only was the sergeant impatient to get the cabin cleared, everyone in the whole place wanted that truck to pass the gate.
The driver– a defense subcontractor, in fact — explained himself: he had left the key (miftah) at home, he was so sorry, but he would gladly break the lock off if someone would loan him a hammer (sharkoosh).
When I explained this to the sergeant he let out a sigh half exasperation and half relief, went to his vehicle with the bounding steps of the lean warrior, and brought the driver his own hammer — the one he’d signed for in taking command of the vehicle.
By now, the cordon of gun-toting Americans had lowered their guard. The driver applied the claw and snapped a Masterlock open with one brutal movement of his meaty upper-body. This also broke the claw of the hammer, which momentarily enraged the sergeant, who then accepted the apology of the truck driver (through my translation).
The driver offered to give the sergeant his own hammer in exchange (it was inside the locked box). I talked the sergeant into accepting the hammer. The truck driver delivered his ice, stopped on his way out, and unpacked a kebreeta to make tea. The sergeant marveled at the way hot tea cooled him down in the desert afternoon. The infantrymen guarding the gate were curious to know if he had multiple wives — and were stunned when I explained he was a Coptic Christian. Someone brought the driver a new Masterlock before he left; I have no idea where it came from.
Of course, the soldiers still searched the truck very carefully after that; but they knew the driver and had a civilized relationship with him. When we don’t even bother to try communicating, it does not serve us or speak well of us. Every American who knows one of these languages is worth their weight in gold.
Programming note: I’m starting the moving process today, so light-to-no blogging.
