Military emphasizing —and rewarding — language proficiency

[unhappycamper]

Military emphasizing —and rewarding — language proficiency
By Mark Abramson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, March 16, 2009

The U.S. military is going to greater lengths to encourage servicemembers to become proficient in languages — including ones that would be handy where the country is at war.

Every branch is authorized to give bonus pay of up to $12,000 a year to servicemembers who demonstrate proficiency in certain languages. The Department of Defense does not release a list of those languages, but officials who were interviewed recently said the department is putting a premium on the languages that are valuable for combatting terrorists.

"The standard stuff is Chinese, Farsi and other key languages," said Air Force Lt. Col. Jesse Johnson, chief of the Air Force Language and Culture Office.

Although each branch is on equal footing when it comes to the maximum incentive pay it can offer, the services either have their own plans, are considering ideas or have already taken steps to encourage more sailors, airmen and Marines to learn a language. Army officials did not respond to several requests for more information.

The Navy has seen the number of sailors who are considered proficient — scoring at least a 2 on a scale of 5 on both the listening and reading proficiency tests used by DOD — rise from 1,500 after Sept. 11, 2001, to 3,500 today. A 2 is considered high, and even a fluent speaker most likely wouldn’t be able to score a 4 or 5, said Lee Johnson, the director of the Navy’s foreign language program.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61367

[DrDan]

1. funny (not really) that the military would pay $1000 per month for this proficiency but kick out

gays that serve in these language roles.

Just amazing.

[Angleae]

2. This isn't exactly new, they were doing this when I was in.

And I left Jan 1994. Although the money being offered has gone up.