Rounding out the Square Peg: The Military Foreign Language Skills Imperative
For the last six months they had trained hard- almost perfectly. They had mastered their patrol skills. Their actions on contact were solid. They had rehearsed their convoy SOPs over and over. They could perform a building take-down in their sleep. Every member of the platoon was at least a rifle sharpshooter. They boasted sixteen rifle experts and two school trained snipers. All were trained with the latest issue ACOG optics, NVGs, hand grenades, AT-4 rockets and some had even trained with the Carl Gustav bunker buster. Their Comm and GPS gear was state of the art. Their NCOs were all qualified with the M9 pistol and were solid leaders. They were confident. Their Corpsman was a mountain of a man who could easily carry any one of them if they went down. He had trained extensively in field first aid and wound stabilization. The platoon sergeant was a salty veteran of fighting in Somalia and Afghanistan as well as two previous rides to Iraq. Their commander was young but confident and aggressive. He had trained in combined arms and could accurately place indirect and air delivered fires. Though this was his first combat deployment, he knew the mission and was dedicated to getting his platoon home alive. Ethnically they were made up of 26 whites, 1 Asian, 6 Hispanics, and 9 blacks. They all had undergone some cultural training for the deployment. They knew it was rude to show the soles of their feet, to touch women, to mishandle the Koran for instance.
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