SPECIAL OPERATIONS: Language Skills as Part of the SOF Tool Kit

No “Failure to Communicate”

A U.S. Army Non-commissioned Officer assigned to Special Operations Command South coaches commandos from the Dominican Republic on the best methods for dismounting a helicopter prior to a live exercise on how to recover a downed pilot (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Alex Licea, Special Operations Command South Public Affairs Office)

U.S. Special Operations Forces (Army Green Berets, Navy SEALS, etc.) are going to be doing a lot more of this in the future: training troops in friendly nations to handle their own internal defense against terrorists and insurgents. U.S. Special Operations Command intends to align special operators regionally with the geographic combatant commands, like Southern Command or Africa Command.

To be effective, they’ll have to concentrate on learning the culture, geography, economics — and languages — of those regions.

However, with the exception of the Green Berets — who have been doing just that since Vietnam — most special operators aren’t skilled in foreign languages, especially exotic tongues like Hausa, Kurdish or Tausug. Your 4GWAR editor’s story on technologies that can help bridge that gap appears in April’s Special Operations Technology magazine.

Click on:

http://www.kmimediagroup.com/SOTECH/magazines/articles-sotech/sotech-2014-volume-12-issue-3-april