By Patrick Bray
DLIFLC Public Affairs
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey, California, hosted about 40 foreign naval attachés and their spouses June 1. (Photo by Patrick Bray, DLIFLC Public Affairs)
MONTEREY, Calif. – The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey, California, hosted about 40 foreign naval attachés and their spouses June 1.
DLIFLC Commandant, Col. David K. Chapman, welcomed the attachés to the institute and gave them an overview of how DLIFLC trains linguists for the armed services.
Chapman, a Foreign Area Officer and three-time graduate of DLIFLC, spoke about his own experience learning Russian, Serbian-Croatian, and Greek.
“People often don’t realize how big we are, they assume that we are a single ‘institute’ or building, but when they come here, they are amazed by all the things we do, the capabilities that we have, and the number of military service members we train,” said Chapman, explaining that the perception about DLIFLC is often that it is a small school that only trains foreign area officers.
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey, California, hosted about 40 foreign naval attachés and their spouses June 1. (Photo by Patrick Bray, DLIFLC Public Affairs)
DLIFLC trains approximately 3,500 service members in 23 languages, most of whom are new to the military. The attachés visited classrooms in the European and Latin American school to get a firsthand look at just a fraction of the languages offered.
Defense, Military, Naval, and Air Attaché of Finland Capt. Timo Stahlhammar observed a Serbian-Croatian class and was impressed with the students’ learning, especially that they were so young and new to the military.
“I didn’t understand anything that was being said, but hearing the students speak to each other I could tell that they were communicating,” said Stahlhammar.
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey, California, hosted about 40 foreign naval attachés and their spouses June 1. (Photo by Patrick Bray, DLIFLC Public Affairs)
Stahlhammar commended the students and their instructor for their hard work and success. He encouraged the students to keep up their language skills once they leave DLIFLC.
Attachés serve as military advisers to ambassadors or other heads of their country’s diplomatic mission with most working in Washington, D.C. The naval attachés’ visit was part of a U.S. government-sponsored tour organized annually for members of the Naval Attaché Association.
