Defense Language Institute

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Crest of the Defense Language Institute
Crest of the Defense Language Institute

The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution, which provides linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other Federal Agencies and numerous and varied other customers. The Defense Language Institute is responsible for the Defense Language Program, and the bulk of the Defense Language Institute's activities involve educating DOD members in assigned languages. Other functions include planning, curriculum development, and research in second-language acquisition.

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[edit] Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC)

The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at the Presidio of Monterey, California (DLIFLC & POM) is the DoD's primary foreign language school. Military servicemembers study foreign languages at highly accelerated paces in courses ranging from twelve to 63 weeks in length. [1] In October 2001, the Institute received Federal degree-granting authority to issue Associate of Arts in Foreign Language degrees to qualified graduates of all basic programs. The AA Degree petition and all requirements must be submitted no later than 10 years after completion of DLIFLC coursework (see www.dliflc.edu for details).

Although the property is under the jurisdiction of the Army, there are Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force presences on post, and all four branches provide students and instructors. Members of other Federal agencies may also receive training, and members of other law enforcement agencies may receive Spanish language training.

As of 2007, languages taught at the DLIFLC include:

[edit] DLI-Washington

The DLIFLC also maintains the DLI-Washington office in the Washington, DC area. The Washington office provides training in languages not taught at the Presidio of Monterey, such as "low-density languages" which do not require the same large volume of trained personnel. There is some overlap, however, as students from the Defense Attaché System (DAS) are given local training in languages also available at the Monterey location.

Training is carried out at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the Department of State and by five commercial private-sector foreign language schools in the metropolitan Washington, DC area.

[edit] Defense Language Institute English Language Center (DLIELC)

The DLIELC is a Department of Defense agency responsible for training international military and civilian personnel to speak and teach English. The agency also manages the English as a Second Language Program for the US military, and manages overseas English training programs.

International students must be sponsored by an agency of the Department of Defense, and commonly include personnel from NATO member countries.

The main campus is currently located on the grounds of Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas.

[edit] History of DLI

The Defense Language Institute traces its roots to the eve of America’s entry into World War II, when the U.S. Army established a secret school at the Presidio of San Francisco to teach the Japanese language. Classes began November 1, 1941, with four instructors and 60 students in an abandoned airplane hangar at Crissy Field. The students were mostly second-generation Japanese-Americans (Nisei) from the West Coast. Nisei Hall is named in honor of these earliest students, who are honored in the Institute’s Yankee Samurai exhibit.

During the war, the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), as it came to be called, grew dramatically. When Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were moved into internment camps in 1942, the school moved to temporary quarters at Camp Savage, Minnesota. By 1944 the school had outgrown these facilities and moved to nearby Fort Snelling. More than 6,000 graduates served throughout the Pacific Theater during the war and the subsequent occupation of Japan.

In 1946 the school moved to the Presidio of Monterey. By that time little remained of the original Spanish presidio, which had been established in 1770 to protect the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. The city of Monterey had grown up near the mission and presidio to become the capital of the Spanish (later Mexican) province of Alta California. During the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the town was captured by Marines under the command of United States Navy Commodore John D. Sloat. The U.S. Army rebuilt the post beginning in 1902, and after World War I it became the home of the 11th Cavalry.

At the Presidio of Monterey, the renamed Army Language School expanded rapidly in 1947–48 during the Cold War. Instructors, including native speakers of more than thirty languages and dialects, were recruited from all over the world. Russian became the largest language program, followed by Chinese, Korean, and German.

The U.S. Air Force met most of its foreign language training requirements in the 1950s through contract programs at universities such as Yale, Cornell, Indiana, and Syracuse and the U.S. Navy taught foreign languages at the Naval Intelligence School in Washington, D.C., but in 1963 these programs were consolidated into the Defense Foreign Language Program. A new headquarters, the Defense Language Institute (DLI), was established in Washington, D.C., and the former Army Language School commandant, Colonel James L. Collins, Jr., became the Institute’s first director. The Army Language School became the DLI West Coast Branch, and the foreign language department at the Naval Intelligence School became the DLI East Coast Branch. The contract programs were gradually phased out. The DLI also took over the English Language School at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, which became the DLI English Language Center (DLIELC).

During the peak of American involvement in Vietnam (1965–73), the DLI stepped up the pace of language training. While regular language training continued unabated, more than 20,000 service personnel studied Vietnamese through the DLI’s programs, many taking a special eight-week military adviser “survival” course. From 1966 to 1973, the Institute also operated a Vietnamese branch using contract instructors at Biggs Air Force Base near Fort Bliss, Texas (DLI Support Command, later renamed the DLI Southwest Branch). Vietnamese instruction continued at DLI until 2004.

In the 1970s the Institute’s headquarters and all resident language training were consolidated at the West Coast Branch and renamed the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). In 1973, the newly formed U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) assumed administrative control, and in 1976, all English language training operations were returned to the U.S. Air Force, which operates DLIELC to this day.

The DLIFLC won academic accreditation in 1979 from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and in 1981 the position of Academic Dean (later called Provost) was reestablished. In the early 1980s, crowding and living conditions at the Monterey location forced the Institute to open two temporary branches: a branch for Air Force enlisted students of Russian at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas (1981–1987), and another for Army enlisted students of German, Korean, and Spanish at the Presidio of San Francisco (1982–1988). As a result of these conditions, the Institute began an extensive facilities expansion program on the Presidio.

In the spring of 1993, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission rejected suggestions that the Institute be moved or closed, and recommended that its mission be continued at the present location. In summer of 2005, the BRAC reopened the issue, to include the closure of the Naval Postgraduate School. Supporters of the closure believed that due to the rising property values and cost of living in the Monterey Bay area, taxpayers would save money by moving both schools to a less expensive location in Ohio. Opponents argued that it would be difficult (if not impossible) to replace the experienced native-speaking faculty at DLI, as the cultural centers of San Francisco and California's Central Coast offer a more diverse pool from which to recruit local instructors, and that the military intelligence community would suffer as a result. The BRAC met in Monterey on August 8, 2005, to hear arguments from both sides. On August 25, 2005, the BRAC commission's final vote unanimously decided to keep DLI at its current location in Monterey.

During DLI's 65th anniversary celebration in November 2006, DLI named the first 10 individuals inducted into the Defense Language Institute Hall of Fame. DLI receives nominations for new Hall of Fame members each May. [2]

Inductees to the DLI Hall of Fame:

  • Air Force Col. William Fife: Russian basic, 1948
  • Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Francona: Vietnamese basic, 1971; Arabic basic, 1974; Arabic intermediate, 1978
  • Shigeya Kihara: Instructor of Japanese, 1941-1974
  • Army Maj. Gen. Roland Lajoie: Russian basic, 1968
  • Air Force Maj. Gen. Doyle Larson: Helped develop the career linguist force within the USAF
  • Hugh McFarlane: Russian basic, 1966; Hebrew basic, 1970
  • Army Col. David McNerney: commandant of DLI 1981-1985
  • Glenn Nordin: Russian basic, 1950s; Vietnamese Adviser Course, 1966
  • Former White House Chief of Staff and Congressman Leon Panetta: championed language education in the military
  • Whitney E. Reed: commandant of the National Cryptologic School 1986-1993; and NSA/CSS deputy director for education and training

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
Sub-commands United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
Installations
Schools
Languages