Not far away, a small group talked about the day’s events.
Close by, emergency first aid was being provided to an injured person, while an interrogation was being done at another location.
 Retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, right, interacts with Pvt. Andrew Weaverling in a classroom activity during an Arabic Language Immersion Course on Friday on Fort Huachuca. (Beatrice Richardson-Herald/Review) |
And a general watched it all.
But none of this took place in a Baghdad neighborhood. All of it was done in an Intelligence Center classroom, where handpicked soldiers are going through an Arab language immersion course with the help of native speakers — two women, one from Egypt and the other from Jordan, and two men, one a Sudanese and the second a Moroccan.
The 41-week course, which is six months shorter than the modern standard Arabic taught at the Defense Language Institute in California, involves soldiers who completed the human intelligence collector course at the Intelligence Center.
On Friday, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid was the center of attention in the classroom.
The former commander of Central Command and a fluent Arab speaker was interested in what enlisted soldiers were learning and how that could dovetail into a special program at his alma mater West Point, from which he graduated in 1973.
Walking around the room, he engaged the young soldiers and their instructors, mostly speaking Arabic to keep the immersion mood going.
“I learned Arabic by immersion,” Abizaid said of going to Jordan for part of his training after attending DLI.
While his father was Lebanese-American, he said Arabic was not spoken in his home.
The soldier students are learning modern standard Arabic, which is good for reading newspapers and viewing television.
But, Abizaid said, Arabic has many nuances, dialects and accents that only can be picked up by a living experience and an immersion course helps.
The nearly 20 students, a couple of soldier instructors and the civilian program manager will be going to a Middle Eastern nation later this month for a four-week total immersion course where they will do noting but speak Arabic.
Modern standard Arabic is like speaking Shakespearean English when mingling with the people on crowded streets in English-speaking nations, Abizaid said. While understood, Shakespearean English in places such as England and America would be out of place for the common person, as modern standard Arabic is for Arabs. Abizaid said that is why learning what is spoken and how it is spoken within Arab society is critical.
As the distinguished chair of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Abizaid said what is being presented to cadets, the Army’s future officers, and what is being done at the Intelligence Center regarding young enlisted soldiers are mutually inclusive.
A small entourage from the New York center was at the fort with the general, including the center’s director, Maj. Reid Sawyer, who is on the list for promotion to lieutenant colonel.
A military intelligence officer and a West Point graduate of 1992, Sawyer said the cadet center trains the future officers at the military academy and agents from a number of other federal organizations. The center’s other functions include researching terrorism and providing policy advice.
Sawyer said it is important that the centers at West Point and Fort Huachuca share what is being taught, because in the future, some young lieutenant will command military intelligence soldiers.
Abizaid said that under Maj. Gen. John Custer, the Intelligence Center has incorporated linguistics, culture and technology to better prepare soldiers “like these,” as the general pointed at the soldiers in the room.
“He’s preparing the best intelligence soldiers.” Abizaid said of Custer, who commands the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca and who formerly was Abizaid’s senior intelligence officer at Central Command.
The United States faces a “very committed enemy, like al-Qaida and the Taliban,” the retired general said.
Al-Qaida and the Taliban and other terrorist groups who are smart and use technology must be routed out of Arab society and other cultures such as Afghanistan, Abizaid said. That, he added, means having soldiers smart in language and culture to accomplish the missions.
Arabic is a hard language, and having a beginning immersion course at the Intelligence Center is a smart program, Abizaid said.
The soldiers will learn, through language and culture, there are differences in how an Iraqi Arab thinks and acts, and within a place such as Iraq, how a Sunni does things different from a Shi’a and a Kurd.
Discussing the U.S. political arena, Abizaid said President-elect Barack Obama must be properly advised by military and intelligence leaders of what the nation faces.
Calling the Middle East and Afghanistan a highly troubled and explosive region, Abizaid said the new president “will have some very, very hard choices to make.”
Before making decisions on issues involving Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran and other Middle East counties, Obama “needs to study them and understand them first,” the retired general said.
For the soldiers in the 41-week immersion class, there is another class of 24 weeks being taught at the Intelligence Center. Abizaid said he is impressed by how much they have learned so far when it comes to Arabic.
As he went around the room, engaging in talk — in Arabic — with the students, the conversations between he and them were animated, with an occasional stop as a soldiers searched for the right Arabic word or phrase to continue the dialogue.
Two of the soldiers, Pfc. Derek Wisner and Spc. Christin Fippinger, spoke after the general left to visit the 24-week immersion class.
“I’m comfortable on (speaking about) daily issues,” 22-year-old Wisner said.
Going through the immersion class on a daily basis builds confidence in speaking Arabic, he added.
For the 24-year-old Fippinger, being able to speak what is spoken on the streets has been a confidence builder.
“Each day (of instruction), it becomes easier,” she said.
They both said having a better grasp of Arabic will make them better human intelligence collectors.
And both are waiting for their month-long immersion time in a part of the Middle East where they will be required to speak only Arabic.
“There will be no English allowed,” said David Villarreal, the immersion course program manager who is a retired Army officer and Arab speaker.
If someone in the country they will be visiting speaks to them in English, they have to respond in Arabic.
“They are going to hear the real Arabic language in a real setting,” Villarreal said.
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
