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Pentagon creating civilian Language Corps

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is setting up a civilian Language Corps, a cadre of some 1,000 foreign-language speakers who can help the government in times of war and national emergencies.

In a three-year pilot program, the Defense Department will recruit volunteers and do testing to see if such a program would work. If successful, a permanent corps could be developed, said Robert Slater, who heads the Pentagon personnel office’s security education program.

“The federal government can’t possibly identify, hire and warehouse professionals with skills in 150 languages,” Slater said Wednesday. “So it’s invaluable to be able to respond in emergencies, whether international or national.”

The global war on terror has made the U.S. military and other government agencies aware of their shortage of people who speak Arabic and other languages. Officials have been working to beef up bilingual staff, and President Bush a year ago launched an initiative to promote education in foreign languages important to national security.

The new Language Corps would be a pool of people who could be called upon to help in humanitarian crises at home or overseas, as well as in wars if they volunteer to do so.

The languages to be included in the pilot have not been chosen, but will depend on what exercises are developed to test the program. For instance, a scenario could be developed to practice how such a corps would respond to an earthquake in Pakistan or a disaster in the Philippines, meaning languages spoken there would be involved in the pilot.

The department also announced late Tuesday the award of four grants totaling $2 million to four U.S. universities to teach cadets and midshipmen foreign languages including Arabic, Russian, Pashto, Chinese, Hindi and Farsi.

The universities getting the grants are Indiana University, San Diego State University, the University of Mississippi and the University of Texas at Austin.

“The department’s goal is to expose ... cadets and midshipmen to the study of languages and cultures of the world critical to national security,” said David S.C. Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness.