Chief ofwith contributing informationArmy visits DLIFLC
Staff of the from Amanda Stein
By Brian Lamar
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY,
Calif. - As testament to the
importance of language and culture
training for the Armed Forces
during an era of persistent conflict,
the United States Army’s Chief of
Staff, Gen. George Casey Jr., visited
the Defense Language Institute
Foreign Language Center May 13.
Casey, a strong advocate of
basic language skills and culture
predeployment training, had the
opportunity to observe and speak
with students taking the 47 weeklong Persian Farsi course.
“I’m impressed with this program
and how much you have learned,”
said Casey, to Army, Marines, Air
Force, and Navy students who
spoke about various aspects of their
experience studying the Persian
Farsi language and culture.
Stating that knowing language
and understanding culture plays a
criti cal part in Soldier education,
Casey explained his view of the
future operating environment and
the challenges they will be facing.
“It’s [combat environment] only
going to get more complex as we go
into the future. We need leaders of
character and competence who are
supremely competent in their core
proficiencies and broad enough to
do a range of things,” he said.
Casey explained that unexpected
situations in the battlefield call
for the ability to make rapid
adjustments based on assessment
of the situation. “Because when
you have a complex task, people
get befuddled by it,” explained
Casey. “When they are befuddled,
they don’t act. And it’s the leader
that needs to grasp the situation
and chart a course through
the complexity. And if he’s not
competent and confident, and
broad enough to think his way
through tough problems, then we
won’t get what we need to get. We
feel very strongly that leadership is
going to be key to our continued
success in the 21st century security
environment.”
A program, pre-approved by
Casey only days before visiting the
Institute included Rapport, a new
mandatory eight-hour predeployment
language learning program which all
Soldiers will have to complete online
to receive a certificate of completion.
The program will be available through
Army Knowledge Online as of Oct. 1.
“The program consists of
two military modules from our
HeadStart2 language program and
another program called Cultural
Orientation. If the students achieve
a 70 percent passing rate on the
exam, they will be able to print out
a certificate of completion, as well as
have their scores immediately sent
electronically to their Army records,”
said Pamela Combacau, dean of
Technology Integration at DLIFLC.
“This is great,” exclaimed Casey
upon seeing the demonstration of
the program. “We need to make
language expected rather than
forced,” he asserted.
The Chief of Staff of the Army
was shown an array of Internetbased language and culture programs
offered by DLIFLC.
DLIFLC staff demonstrated
the Broadband Language Training
System (BLTS), a distance learning
program dedicated to delivering
real-time foreign language training
to non-resident DoD linguists
via broadband technologies, by
connecting the Chief of Staff of
the Army to Air Force Lt. Col.
Paul Howe, who has used BLTS
extensively to maintain and enhance
his Chinese language skills.
Casey was also given the
opportunity to interact with
deployed language learners who
shared their experiences of using
DLIFLC distance learning products
at Camp Julien, Afghanistan, via a
conference call.
To view an interview with Gen. Casey, please visit:
http://vimeo.com/channels/dliflc or http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDLIFLC.
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