Several days ago COL Pat Lang discussed learning Arabic, detailing how it is not a one year course, because the grammar, vocabulary, and intonations are complicated., but requires years of intense effort to gain some skill.

I am a passable language learner, but it took me three years of full time study before I really acquired any significant ability in the language. Then I lived in the Arab World for a long time in places where hardly anyone spoke English. Then I taught the language for three years. I think I know what I am talking about. College students typically learn to read some Arabic (MSA) if they study it for four years. That is just the beginning in acquiring the status of an Arabist. To think that young soldiers can be given any more than a passive "listening" ability in Arabic in a year or so of study is just illusory.

COL Lang included a commentary from a man who has spent years immersed in the language who explains the difficulties and roadblocks to fluency.

I have had years of Arabic instruction at the University level, along with advanced grammar classes and I still find it difficult. The immersion aspect with my wife helps, but this is only of limited use as her dialect is understood by almost all Arabs, but it doesn't help me with other dialects.

Second, Arabic is just a very hard language to learn. Languages are rated according to their difficulty to learn and Arabic is at the top along with Mandarin Chinese. There are numerous sounds in Arabic that just don't exist in English, ie "ayn" and "gayn" not to mention glottal type stops.

Third, the language that is taught in University is classical MSA "Modern Standard Arabic", or in Arabic "fus7a". This is not the way that Arabs speak to each other on a day to day basis. It will help you watch TV and movies, as well as reading religious, academic and other books, but it is a long way from how most Arabs speak. I have met Americans who have learned Arabic in school and their Arabic is almost unintelligible because it is spoken in a scholarly manner that is far removed from day to day local dialect.

Bearing in mind the difficulty of the language, as expressed by two English-speakers who have spent years mastering the tongue, I was struck by this:

One of the most innovative programs [in gaining language translators] is the Army’s effort to recruit “heritage language” speakers from countries the U.S. is engaged in, Gail McGinn, deputy undersecretary of defense for plans, said in an interview today. These soldiers have backgrounds in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, and already have a thorough knowledge of the languages and cultures in those areas.

“If you have a native language, you have the accent right, but more importantly, you also have the culture right, and you know something about the part of the world where your family’s from, where you grew up for part of your life,” McGinn said. “And that brings a great advantage to you in working with our forces.”

The program, called the 09L interpreter/translator program, started with the Individual Ready Reserve, McGinn explained. Native speakers were recruited into the IRR and trained in translation skills and English, if they needed it, then sent into the force as soldiers. Now the Army offers the program in the active-duty and reserve components as well, she said.

When the program started in 2003, the Army set an initial goal of 250 native speakers recruited per year, McGinn said. The Army is now meeting that goal, and in the last fiscal year recruited 130 percent of the goal, she said.

“That’s a tribute to the Army and its recruiters, but it’s also a tribute to these great Americans who are coming forward to help us,” she said.

How the translators are obtained, whether through a Reserve program, or direct enlistment, is less important than their skills, not only in the language but also in the cultural peculiarities, which could often be more important than perfect pronunciation. It appears that the US Army will be spending the next 20 to 30 years in the Mideast, and it’s vital that we somehow gain acceptance. If we fail to do that, we’ll be losing 100 or more GIs each month, year after year.

Understanding the importance of fluent translators, I find this incomprehensible.

WASHINGTON: Lawmakers who say the military has kicked out 58 Arabic linguists because they were gay want the Pentagon to explain how it can afford to let the valuable language specialists go.

Seizing on the latest discharges, involving three specialists, members of the House of Representatives wrote the House Armed Services Committee chairman that the continued loss of such "capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war."

It’s disheartening to learn that the Army is still applying a sexual litmus test to its translators. There has been a surfeit of articles and studies to support the position that gay soldiers don’t seem to affect unit cohesion. So why is who you sleep with more important than how well you speak a foreign language?