So You Want to be a Military Linguist?

Here are some things you should know:

-If you want to pick your language, join the National Guard.

-Most military linguists end up working for NSA during their enlistment. 

-NSA is a fun place to work. You'll get to play with their cool secret squirrel software. 

-If you want to be air crew, join the Navy or Air Force, and you might get stationed somewhere cool like Japan or Spain.

-Army pays the highest bonuses. I got $40,000 for a 6-year contract. You get half the bonus when you complete training and the rest in annual payments.

-DLI (Defense Language Institute) is hard if you don't have study skills. Many smart people flunk out of there.

-The Monterey area is great. Enjoy it if you end up there. 

-Buy the DLAB Study Guide from Delta Gear by Greg Boban to maximize your score. You need to do well on it to get assigned Arabic, Chinese, or Korean.

 -Read Wikipedia articles in your target language about topics you know well. This will help you pass the course and the DLPT. 

-It is possible to get your preferred language once at DLI, but you might end up with Farsi when you wanted Russian. I got lucky.  

-It's mostly a listening job with some reading. If you want to be an interpreter, you need to be fluent in a foreign language. Plenty of people who speak Spanish or Korean join the military.

-Join the Navy if you want Chinese. Join the Air Force if you want Arabic. Join the Army if you want Korean. Join the Marines if you want Tagalog or Indonesian. All branches train linguists for all languages, but these are the relative biases. 

-The Arabic course lasts 64 weeks. I got to DLI in February of 2016 and graduated in August of 2017.

-If you have a bunch of foreign contacts, it may take you up to 2 years to get your TS/SCI clearance from the time you finish training. 

It worked out well for me because I was motivated. Make sure you have a good reason to join.