Working in the Army as an Interpreter and Translator can take you to many different duty stations. Depending on what language that you translate, you could be stationed anywhere the Army has a population of people that it needs to communicate with. The defense of our nation depends on being able to communicate with persons from other countries, and having accurate information available from Radio, Television and printed foreign language sources. It is also very important that we have trained people that can understand and read many of the worlds languages. This have never been as important as it is right now in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Currently the Army seeks Middle Eastern speaking individuals, as well as individuals that wish to learn to speak Farsi, Arabic, and other languages spoken by the people of the middle eastern region. Individuals that are interested in this career path are required to sign up for an eight-year army commitment because the demand for accurate translation is so great.
The Army Interpreter and Translator is responsible for translating and converting into written and spoken text various languages. They take the data and foreign language information and convert it into English, and also convert English into the foreign language. Some of your Duties as an interpreter and translator may include:
-Performing oral interpretation functions. Assisting a military liaison officer at a military traffic control point, providing non-technical translations into the foreign language target and target language back into English, providing oral interpretation assistance as needed by Public Affairs, and combat troops in the field. Training depends if you are already proficient in one of the many foreign target languages. If you are, then you likely can be pressed into service in a short amount of time. If you do not know one of these target languages, then your training period for individual advanced training will be much longer.
Find the Military Career right for YOU ! Click here for more Information.
You will attend nine weeks of basic combat training, and then you will advance to individual advanced training, where you may possibly be sent to Defense Language School in San Francisco, California. There you will spend anywhere from 16 to 31 weeks training in your foreign target language. Learning a target language or already being fluent is a huge advantage for this job career. If you are a fluent native speaker, you may be really suited for this job specialty in the Army.
