The US gov. won't hire Jews or Palestinians as translators.
That takes a huge chunk of educated people out of their databases.
If you think the white boy down the street is going to study Arabic, forget about it. It's waaaaaay too difficult.
Morse code is MUCH easier than Arabic, and can land an enlistee automatic NCO status.
Yet how many can do it?
Like a previous poster said, if you haven't learned 2 languages by puberty, you're sunk.
Only first and second generation Americans are bilingual. I admit to that category African Americans who speak both standard English and Ebonics.
The rest of America is lost. Clueless.
Not really.
I speak five fairly well and can get by in a sixth and didn't speak anything but English until I was in my twenties.
"Morse code is MUCH easier than Arabic, and can land an enlistee automatic NCO status. Yet how many can do it?"
Boy Scouts used to it was a requirement to earn the 1st Class Rank and there was a Signaling Merit Badge requiring 10 characters a minute in Morse Code but even those have been removed from Scouting.