Comments on: a new lease on [army] life

By: iAN

iAN — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:32:06 +0000

@mac: I would LOVE to learn Russian. There’s an overwhelming request for Arabic speakers these days, but I may be able to finagle my way into a Russian course.

By: Mac Williams

Mac Williams — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:22:08 +0000

Ian,

Well, learning a foreign language and cryptology sets you up for a CIA job after Army life….remember, the best way to learn one is to go and live where it’s spoken. If I were you I’d consider these strategic languages:

Urdu, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Portuguese, or Farsi.

I imagine we’ll be needing fluent russian speakers again soon.

By: iAN

iAN — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:05:15 +0000

@frank: Honestly I was secretly hoping for door number 3, and a medical discharge. I’m so tired of Army, but it’ll be over soon (five more years, bleh). Regarding patrols and such, we rarely had Army interpreters with us - we used locals who were contracted. Most of what our ‘terps did was interrogations of detainees we brought back to the FoB, and written translation.

By: Frank

Frank — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:42:40 +0000

Sweeet! You have to do that one.. then Jeni, Caleb, and I can come up and visit, and go to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium!!!! And maybe whale-watching!

I have to chime in with the job choice issue. Here’s my thinking.. You just got out of the infantry. You have the opportunity to choose a job that’s not going to require you to carry the heavy packs and go on patrol and end every day in pain. It seems to me, that if you were either of these jobs, that is exactly what you’d be back doing again. You’d be out on patrol talking to the locals, which put’s you back in with the infantry. Am I right or am I misguided about the job descriptions?

Personally I’d prefer it if you weren’t going back ot the sandbox in a job that you could get shot at. Maybe you should look at HR! Or data entry! Or USAF!!111

-Frnak

By: tracy

tracy — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:46:26 +0000

DLI is in Monterrey!

By: Ryalin

Ryalin — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:36:34 +0000

Those are both awesome job opportunities. Personally Rick would go interpreter, but that would keep him in country more. Hmm, ok. He did say that they both do about the same thing, which is what you already know.

Where is DLI school located?

By: d

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:16:20 +0000

YELL YELL EYLL

By: iAN

iAN — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:29:11 +0000

@raesha: Heh, nice. Truth be told there are a handful of words I intentionally misspell pretty much without fail: smrat is one of those words. (So is Frnak :D)

By: raesha

raesha — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:36:57 +0000

d - I remember that too!!! And ian - yahoo to you:) I refuse to proofread my blog cause I spend all day proofreading at work.

By: d

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:21:13 +0000

You mean maybe I *actually* remember it?

By: iAN

iAN — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:17:09 +0000

@d: I vaguely remember the same thing …

By: iAN

iAN — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:16:06 +0000

@raesha: You’re welcome and happy birthday on paper! Regarding the spelling “error”, please refer to the rules page!

By: d

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:15:08 +0000

I vaguely remember seeing those two job descriptions as your reasoning for going into Army to begin with.

By: raesha

raesha — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:18:14 +0000

That’s awesome! Thanks for the phone call today:):)
PS Did you mean to misspell smart?? Cause it totally fits with the sentence to see that you misspelled it:)