Army Looks for Linguists...in the Online Classifieds

The Army is recruiting Arabic translators on Craigslist:

Your primary responsibility will be to interpret Middle-Eastern languages into English to help with rebuilding efforts. On a day-to-day basis, you might:

* Provide records of foreign language communications
* Translate, transcribe or produce summaries of foreign language materials into English or target languages
* Identify the language spoken in an assigned geographic area
* Scan written foreign language material for key words and indicators
* Translate written and interpret spoken foreign language material to and from English, while making sure to preserve the original meaning
* Translate and transcribe Middle-Eastern language TV and radio broadcasts into English
* Translate foreign books and articles describing foreign equipment and construction techniques

LANGUAGES

The Army Translator Aide Program specializes in the following languages:

Arabic

* Algerian
* Egyptian
* Gulf-Iraqi
* Jordanian
* Lebanese
* Libyan
* Maghrebi
* Modern Standard
* Moroccan
* Syrian
* Sudanese
* Tunisian
* Yemeni

Other

* Pushtu-Afghan
* Pushtu/Pashto/Pachto
* Kurdish
* Kurdish-Behdini (Kurmanji)
* Kurdish-Sorani
* Persian-Afghan (Dari)
* Persian-Iranian (Farsi)

You know, maybe the Army shouldn’t have canned a bunch of linguists for being gay. Just a thought. I know it’s a kind of radical notion that our national security is more important than institutionalized discrimination against fags, but maybe we should give it a try for awhile and see how things work out.