Four-and-a-half years after 9/11, only a teeny-tiny percentage of our troops speak Arabic. And despite advertised plans for increased language training, that’s not going to change any time soon. In the meantime, the military is turning to technological fixes — translator gadgets that let soldiers convey simple commands.
The best known of these is probably the PDA-like Phraselator. Make a couple of stylus taps, or say a few words in English, and out comes an Arabic phrase. “It gets really funny looks from the Iraqis, but they think it’s cool,” one company commander tells me.
But the Phraselator can be a bit of a pain, too. Because you have to hold the thing in your hands in order for it to work. And that makes it a lot harder to hold an M-16 at the same time.
So Integrated Wave Technologies has come up with a translator that doesn’t require any a hand to work. Talk English into a headset, and a ammo clip-sized speaker broadcasts out the Arabic equivalent. Check out this video for an example. You’ll see, the translators aren’t for carrying on conversation; they only interpret a few words at a time. But they seem to work well, when you’re yelling at someone to get on the ground while your gun is pointed at his head. About 600 of the things are now in theater, according to the company.
The next step, of course, is to make the translators two-way, so Iraqis can talk back to the soldiers. Integrated Wave Technologies has a Darpa contract to do just that — one of several translation projects the Pentagon’s way-out researh arm is funding.
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English to Arabic, Hands-Free
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But how can you know if you can trust it?
Soldier: “Where is the nearest garage?“
Translator: “My hovercraft is full of eels…”
The system issues a short verification before playing the foreign language phrase. Users know then it is saying what they want. Also, accuracy is extremely high — for example, LZ RTO with 101st reported, I used the VRT during 12Jan2006 air assault into Sadr Yusifiyah. It worked perfectly. Every time I needed it to say something important it said it.
Further comment from the field: We went on another air assault today and I used the VRT again, and as before when there was no interpreter around it was wonderful. It helped me establish control in an uncontrollable situation without it. Landing Zone RTO, 101st Airborne Division, January 2006
I have been dialing my phone with verbal commands option for some years now and it definitely is no classified high tech.
Doubt would be worth crap in a yelling high stress environment but on a patrol were its not important enough to tote a translator but a couple of sentences with some guy could go a long way. Not to mention just having one of these things in your ear working while a native translator is translating would be like a fact checker making sure he aint covering for his tribe, lie, or sugar coating.
A added bonus would be back at base in down time a couple of these babies could go along way to training guys up on key words phrases and sentences. Would speed the learning curve and pay off later in the field.
When do we all get the implants on Star Trek that makes everyone understand and talk English even those gray blobs on Zenenu Zeba 5? Thats what I want to know.
I used the VRT on numerous DA raids while deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The three biggest things this tool brings to fight are: 1. Speed: it is easier to search/exploit the OBJ/Detainees 2. Anyone on the OBJ can use the VRT to conduct battlefield triage of detainees 3. The VRT negates the need for the interepreter to be in one of the lead stacks entering the OBJ. Instead, he can be in a central location thereby alleviating excess movement and confusion during the mission.
Can anyone say Star Trek? This kind of technology was introduced by Gene Roddenbery. Pretty cool that they are going for two way communication…with the power of computer technology I think it is only a matter of time before this can be used with more than a few words at a time.
no bravery
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