FMI 3-34.119 - Soldier Support Institute - U.S. Army

Appendix B• Linguists will often be immigrant U.S. citizens originally from the country or even from thelocal area in which the unit operates, in which case they will have valuable backgroundknowledge of the AO, as well as biases which must be kept in mind. Additionally, those withlocal backgrounds may have relatives or friends they want to spend time with, which can placethem at significant risk in a counterinsurgency environment.• Linguists will often be significantly older than the Soldiers and Marines, and in any case muchless physically fit, which needs to be considered when planning their use.• There will never be enough linguists, particularly those with security clearance (meaningU.S. citizens). Carefully plan, before deploying, the priorities for both locally hired and U.S.-contracted linguists; this is a matter for coordination between the S-2, the operations staff officer(S-3), and the civil-military operations officer (S-5) (for the local hires), with approval by thecommander. During operations, always maintain a plan to handle sudden reductions in availablelinguists. Any number of factors can lead to such reductions, and it is good to be prepared.B-10 FMI 3-34.119/MCIP 3-17.01 21 September 2005