Some Can’t Read Regulations at 6th Grade Level : Army Obstacle: GIs Who Can’t Handle English

Some U.S. soldiers born in Guam, the Philippines, Vietnam and Puerto Rico understand so little English they are unreliable in war and peacetime, the Stars and Stripes newspaper said Tuesday.

The authorized daily newspaper of the U.S. armed forces in Europe devoted four pages to the problem caused by soldiers who can’t speak English and the Army’s attempt to meet the problem.

Part of the problem is that recruits don’t have to be U.S. citizens to join the Army and men--unlike women recruits--are not required to be high school graduates, the newspaper said.

Commanders Complain

“Some soldiers from Guam, the Philippines, Vietnam and Puerto Rico can’t comprehend English enough to understand or be understood,” the Stars and Stripes said. “European commanders have complained that the Army has been sending them troops who can’t speak English. And in the past seven years, U.S. Army headquarters in Europe has spent $1.6 million on the English as a Second Language Program.”

The paper said the problem should diminish because, beginning Sept. 10, the Army will require all applicants whose native language is not English to take a pre-enlistment test to weed out people who are not fluent.

But Robert Ayers, who directs the Army’s English as a Second Language Program, told the newspaper that this plan doesn’t solve the problem of non-English speakers already in the ranks or due to join before Sept. 10.

These soldiers don’t always understand instructions in manuals, regulations and other documents.

‘Sixth-Grade Level’

“We write regulations to a sixth-grade level,” said Maj. Phil Savoie, judge advocate for the 7th Medical Command. “There are soldiers who can’t read these regulations.”

Stars and Stripes gave these examples:

--Recently the commander of an Army infantry division complained of having so many troops who didn’t speak English that he feared the worst if war broke out.

--A medical evacuation helicopter pilot said his unit had a dispatcher whose English broke down under stress. “He was OK if nothing was going on. But I wouldn’t want to go to war with this guy,” the pilot said.

--A former first sergeant of an Army engineering company that does emergency repairs of runways at the U.S. Air Force’s Rhein-Main Air Base outside Frankfurt said 20 of the 156 soldiers in the unit had difficulty with English and five had a serious problem. “Sometimes I’d tell them what to do and they’d just look at me,” he said. “That’s too many people where something could go wrong.”

Driver’s Example

--Spec. 4 Ricardo Ocasio, a driver with the 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment of the 8th Infantry Division, told the newspaper: “One night while driving, my commander, he tell me, ‘Go back to same place where we were yesterday.’ I started to driving down road in reverse. He ask, ‘What you doing?’ I say, ‘I driving backward to where we were yesterday.”’

--Spec. 4 Juan Hernandez, an infantryman stationed in Mannheim, said: “When we are excited in squad drills and I am far away from squad leader, I can’t understand a thing, not a thing. He speaking too fast.”