Special Operations Forces Language and Culture Needs Assessment: 09L Use in the Special Operations Forces Community

Abstract

The 09L program currently recruits native and heritage speakers of certain Middle-Eastern languages (e.g., Arabic) into the Army as interpreters. This report provides perspectives from Special Operations Forces (SOF) operators and leaders about their use of and experiences with 09Ls. Results from this study indicated that most SOF operators (53%) and leaders (61 %) who participated in the study have never worked with 09Ls. Of those who have worked with 09Ls, results indicated that 09Ls are effective; however, there are _ opportunities to improve the 09L program. For example; respondents suggest that 09Ls should receive additional training to include tactical training, dialect-specific language training, and pre-deployment training with their unit. Additional findings and recommendations for using 09Ls are also presented in this report.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA620120

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Special Operations Command

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Administrative Personnel
  • Attrition
  • Basic Training
  • Deployment
  • Language
  • Management Personnel
  • Military Training
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychological Operations
  • Special Forces
  • Special Operations Forces
  • Students
  • Tactical Training
  • Training
  • United States Central Command
  • United States Special Operations Command
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Education

Readers

  • Computational Linguistics
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Snow Cover Descriptors for Reptiles and Their Illustrations.