Photo By 1st Sgt. Mireille Merilice | A U.S. Army Soldier (left) assigned to 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry...... read more read more
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HOHENFELS, Germany (May 08, 2018) – Basic soldiering includes three simple elements: shoot, communicate, move. When soldiers from more than one dozen countries train together, the potential for communication breakdown can be a major concern.
Combined Resolve X includes approximately 3,700 participants from 13 nations at the 7th Army Training Command’s Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels Training Area, April 9 to May 12, 2018. In a training area known as “the Box,” coalition forces, led by the Polish Army 12th Mechanized Division, with soldiers from Lithuania, Romania, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Georgia and Czech Republic, square off against an opposing force comprised of U.S. Soldiers assigned to the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment and soldiers from the Ukrainian, Slovenian, Romanian and Latvian Armies.
In an effort to standardize language across the 29 member-nations, NATO has designated English and French as the official languages. Command Sgt. Maj. Andrzej Woltmann, 12th Mechanized Division senior enlisted advisor, said in order to be an adaptive leader it is very useful to know your allies and make sure everybody is on the same operational page.
“You have to understand different cultures and different ways of thinking,” Woltmann said. “We can help each other if we know some phrases in other languages, but we have to try and use the military terms according to NATO guidance and not try to literally translate procedures to our national language. At the end of the day, the mission objectives are the same.”
Sgt. 1st Class Randon Sander, explosive ordnance disposal observer coach/trainer for the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) Raptor Team, said communicating with different countries can be challenging during training, but it is limited in some cases.
“Luckily for me, our career field is pretty black and white; like a math equation,” Sander said. “It doesn’t matter what the language is, there is one way to make an explosive. Electricity, circuitry and explosives all work in the same way. I can tell they get the big picture because when I watch them run full throttle, I can tell they are thinking the same things I am.”
Body language and gestures are also used to communicate in multinational medical units. Corp. Pavel Witkowski, a paramedic assigned to 12th Command Battalion, 12th Mec. Div., said he has worked with U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan on multiple deployments. Although the accessibility of translators on cell phones and the Internet have cut many language barriers, he said the technology can sometimes get in the way in a medical emergency.
“Sometimes we must say something quickly, but do not know how to say in a different language,” Witkowski said. “We use simple words and our hands if we don’t know the word if we want to say something when we are working on a patient.”
The Kosovo EOD Company, Kosovo Civil Protection Regiment is comprised of various cultural backgrounds, to include Albanian, Turkish and Bosnian. Soldiers in this unit can speak English, Turkish, Serbian and German. Kosovan soldiers can volunteer to receive language training in English, as well as German, three-times per week. Cpt. Gèzim Sada, EOD Company, Kosovo Civil Protection Regiment deputy commander, said he encourages his soldiers to learn English because it is a common language spoken around the world.
“It is good if everybody can speak another language, but we try to push for everybody to learn English because you cannot go anywhere without English,” Sada said. “We have to adapt with the field and how things are going on the battlefield. It would be difficult for U.S. Soldiers to learn Albanian, but it is not easy to learn English either.”
Knowing he would be interacting with the Polish Army, Col. David W. Gardner, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team commander, took it upon himself to learn Polish before the exercise. He said having the ability to speak simple phrases in Polish might help him come across clearly to his NATO comrades on the battlefield.
“One way you can demonstrate you are committed to your allies is to try and return the favor by learning their language,” Gardner said. “It can be something simple as just saying somebody’s name properly. I think it is a sign of respect.”
Adriana Zakk, a Polish Army 12th Mech. Div. psychologist, said being fluent in a foreign language is not a requirement to communicate with somebody from a different country. Simply knowing basic phrases in a foreign language is showing international courtesy.
“It is about having openness,” Zakk said. “If a soldier from the U.S. or Italy speaks to a Polish soldier and says ‘dzień dobry,’ or good morning, this is collapsing the cultural barrier. Then you can speak in English. When you are working in an international environment, it is about being flexible all of the time.”
Woltmann said understanding a different culture is the first step in accepting differences between your native land and a foreign country. Knowing how to communicate is secondary.
“You should not be ignorant,” Woltmann said. “We have to start with ourselves if we want to learn a new language. If you are coming to Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, it is very good to learn some phrases first. Knowing the culture is most important. Language just helps you to break that cultural barrier.”
Combined Resolve is a U.S. Army Europe-directed multinational exercise designed to give the Army’s regionally allocated combat brigades to Europe a combat training center rotation with a joint, multinational environment.
| Date Taken: | 05.08.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 05.08.2018 07:46 |
| Story ID: | 276071 |
| Location: | HOHENFELS, BY, DE |
| Web Views: | 880 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Soldiers break language and culture barriers during Combined Resolve, by SSG Brian Schroeder, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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