Hello! I was wondering about translators and interpreters. What do you have to do to become one in the military? Do they all work on the field (i.e. carrying weapons and fighting, too) or do some have behind-the-scenes jobs? Anything you can tell me about this profession would be amazing help. Thanks so much for your help and your service! Have a blessed weekend!
Hi there, and thank you very much!I had to do a bit of reading myself on this tbh. This is absolutely not my cup of tea so keep an eye on this post in case some kind people decide to add their input to it.Enlisting to become a 09L linguist is just like enlisting to become any other MOS. You have to have a high enough ASVAB score, pass AIT, and be proficient at your job. If you aren’t a proficient translator, the army reclasses you so it can spend its resources elsewhere. That includes if you aren’t learning fast enough or if you can’t retain the information you have learned.
As is always the case in the military, they put you where they need you, whether that’s translating for foreign dignitaries, walking through a village interviewing random townspeople, or cleaning latrines for the xth time. In addition to that, all soldiers are expected to enter combat if needed, so depending on the situation it’s entirely possible a 09L might find themselves in a firefight, especially since they’re often not huddled up in an office translating paperwork but out in the field actually talking to people. Generally speaking though, interpreters aren’t expected to enter combat, if that makes sense.Any soldier can have themselves listed as fluent in a second or third language without enlisting as an official translator. One of my old roommates was fluent in three other languages besides English and was able to score high enough on comprehension exams for two of them for it to be added to his paperwork, and he was in regular old Air Defense. If his files annotate a proficiency in a certain language, the army may be more likely to pull him to another duty station where that language is needed, although common languages such as Spanish, French, and German are not so high in demand right now. Soldiers who are multilingual can receive a Foreign Language Proficiency Bonus, which can be up to an extra $1000 a month if you know multiple languages. Of course, to receive that bonus it’ll probably have to be one of the languages deemed to be critically important, which currently includes:Pushtu/Pashto/PachtoPushtu-AfghanPersian-Afghan (Dari)Persian-Iranian (Farsi)Arabic-Modern StandardArabic-Gulf-IraqiArabic-EgyptianArabic-LevantineArabic-LibyanArabic-MoroccanArabic-TunisianIncidentally, presently you can only sign up to be a 09L if you’re going into one of these languages. Farsi and Dari were in especially high demand last I checked (for obvious reasons). As you can see, the army prioritizes interpreters who specialize in the language most appropriate to our current warzones. But soldiers who are fluent in a language but aren’t officially interpreters may still be paid the language bonus if they’re in a position in which their abilities are critical to the mission.Often we just don’t get translators at all. When I was in South Korea we almost never had access to a translator, which was unbelievably frustrating because my unit was stationed on a Korean base, not an American one, meaning we were surrounded by and working with South Korean soldiers and we had to hope they knew enough English for us to get by (which to their credit they often did; unlike the U.S., most countries actually try to encourage multilingualism). Only about two people in my whole company knew even conversational Korean, and to even say it was conversational is a bit of a stretch. My personal Korean repertoire included hello, goodbye, thank you, hey mister, go faster, and train station (along with various but often unhelpful names of Korean dishes). When I was in Bahrain we didn’t have translators for the locals there either, whose languages included various forms of Arabic and Persian, as well as (surprisingly enough) Nepalese.
I’m assuming there must have been translators running around somewhere, maybe up at brigade or something, but that certainly did not help lowly us. I’m also assuming units that are in combat zones have more ready access to interpreters? If anyone has any input on their experience with interpreters I’d be thrilled to hear it!If you feel like slugging your way through army paperwork, you can read this memo regarding foreign language bonuses. It goes into how the army tests for language proficiency and how the FLPB is applied for certain languages.I hope at least some of this helped, and thank you so much for your patience! This is one of the older asks in my inbox currently so I’m relieved to have it finally gone ^^’-KingsleyWas this post informative? Entertaining? Eye-opening? Then consider supporting SPC Kingsley on Patreon!
