US arms officers with business, language skills

"We're trying to develop officers to be strategic thinkers and creative managers ... who are culturally aware and have some language capability."

Colonel Mark Patterson, officer in charge of policy for developing the US Army's officer corps

When US Army Major David Hibner was part of the invasion force that seized Baghdad, his unit of more than 400 soldiers had just one Arabic-speaking translator -- a situation that was ripe for misunderstandings.

Hibner, a combat engineer, said entering a building in the Iraqi capital and trying to understand its mechanical systems "was frustrating for us. The dials. The hardware. We didn't know what worked and what didn't."

Two years later, Hibner is among three army officers, all combat veterans likely to lead troops in the Middle East again, who sit in a classroom dressed in civilian clothes and watch as a tutor writes Arabic script across a blackboard.

"You want to say, `Turn left,'" the instructor says. All three men reply: "Liff yasaar. Liff yasaar. Liff yasaar."

The three men are part of a pilot program that is sending 21 army officers to graduate school to learn about foreign cultures, business practices and languages, such as Arabic. Next year, 200 will follow in their footsteps.

The army wants its leaders armed with solid language skills, instead of being perplexed by road signs, engineering plans and simple conversations.

"We're trying to develop officers to be strategic thinkers and creative managers ... who are culturally aware and have some language capability," said Colonel Mark Patterson, who is in charge of policy for developing the army officer corps.

"It's a turning point for the army, in that we are recognizing ... that graduate school is a critical tool for us to broaden officers' experience," he said.

The three officers at the University of South Carolina are enrolled at the Moore School of Business, which boasts one of the nation's best international business graduate programs. The men will spend two years in the classroom and five months in language training overseas to earn their master's degrees.

Hibner, 32, said the program offers a chance to learn from fellow students, as well professors. The faculty, staff and 106 students in the class represent 75 countries including Moldova, Turkey, India, Brazil, China, Japan, Sweden and Germany.

"We spend a lot of time learning not only about the businesses in other cultures, but the cultures in and of themselves ... We gain a lot from that," Hibner said.

Studying alongside Hibner are Major Levi Dunton, a 32-year-old Apache helicopter pilot, and Captain George Walter, 31, a combat engineer.

Their courses, which began in July, include global business issues, international management and business practices around the world. The army is footing the bill, but caps the annual tuition costs at US$13,000.

All three officers said the classes will bolster their abilities to serve in any foreign country, but particularly in the Arabic-speaking world. Dunton said that while stationed near Tikrit, Iraq, his unit ran into problems when trying to communicate.

"We got a lot of donated toys, clothes to give to the kids. It was difficult," he said. "You'd end up playing a lot of charades. It turned a short conversation into an hour ... There were definitely missed communications."

One project to build a small schoolhouse turned into a multiple-month project, Dunton said.

And when it was completed, it really didn't suit the community's needs.

"Just having some native language ability would have helped significantly," he said.

Hibner, who spent seven months in Kuwait and four months in Iraq, said the new program marks a change for the army because it was common for the service to pass over those with international specialties and instead promote those with combat experience.

He said the army's experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown it needs people who are able to work in foreign languages as well as be combat-oriented.

"They want the front-line soldier to have those skills. This program was created specifically to accomplish that," he said.

Patterson said the army plans to put about 200 officers into advance degree programs with an international focus. That will be in addition to the 400 officers that normally are sent to some type of advanced school, he said.

"We want a mix of disciplines at a variety of schools," Patterson said.

Other officers in the pilot program are attending the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California, and Columbia University in New York City.

They must choose a course of study from three areas: cultural awareness; diplomacy, governance and security; or operational skills.

The US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps also send some officers for advanced degrees, but very few senior officers are given the time to devote to in-depth language and international studies.

Martin Roth of the Moore School of Business said the army program offered his school a chance to renew an Arabic track that started in 1982 but was canceled in 1992 after the first Gulf War.

Roth said the school used to send those studying Arabic to the American University in Cairo, but felt it became too dangerous for Americans to study in Egypt. It is now seeking another academic partner in the Middle East.