Special Operations Forces Language and Culture Needs Assessment: Mission-Specific Use of Interpreters.

摘要

The ability to communicate is important to SOF mission success both inside and outside their area of responsibility (AOR). Although language training is provided to many SOF operators to develop organic language capability on SOF tactical elements, they often deploy before optimum proficiency can be fully achieved or deploy outside their assigned AOR to locations where their trained language is not used. To compensate for a lack of mission-relevant language proficiency, SOF operators often use interpreters. This report describes the current reality of interpreter dependence and the impact of this dependence on missions from the perspectives of SOF operators.