 From Korea to Germany, from Alaska to Puerto Rico. All over the world, the United States Army is on the alert to defend our country, you, the American people, against aggression. This is the big picture, an official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now, to show you part of the big picture, here is Captain Carl Zimmerman. Every soldier overseas today, regardless of rank or assignment, serves as an ambassador for his country. Yes, he represents you and his country. It is every word is every action. Your army is well aware of this, and that's why a special school has been established to teach officers and enlisted men the language and the customs of the country to which they will be assigned. We take you now to this most unusual but highly important military installation. The Army Language School at the Procedure of Monterey in California. Monterey, California. Most people know it as a quiet and colorful harbor, a beautiful place with fishing boats at work. A place where local fishermen carry on their traditions of their Sicilian forefathers. But there are soldiers here too, rather unusual soldiers. Lao Rui, today's weather is very good. What do you want to do? I want to go up there and see my friends. Please go with me, okay? Okay. I want to cook. Let's go eat first. Six months ago, the only language these young men knew was everyday American. Now they speak very good Chinese. Across the way are more soldiers, American soldiers who are reading Pravda, and who speak Russian. This is the place in this room, Pravda. They just finished the front door. What's in it? Yes, everything is the same. Do you know what Pravda is? There is no news about it. There is no news about Pravda, right? Well, it's pretty true from me. What did you find in the car? A very good article. In this town you may see an army private reading. No, not the baseball scores, but a Persian magazine. These unusual soldiers are training in the weapon of words, foreign words. They are soldier students in the Army's School of 24 Tons, the Army Language School. Commanding this important installation, which produces one of our newest weapons, is Colonel D.W. Hickey, who has explained the mission of the school in terms of America's world responsibilities. As the defense of our country becomes linked with that of many foreign nations, it is our duty to achieve a closer understanding of these countries so that we can work together in harmony and mutual trust. If we are to understand these people of foreign countries, we must first understand their language. To do this, we need an army of linguists. Like this American officer now in Europe, instructing NATO soldiers in the use of our modern weapons. Or this Air Force Sergeant, who now speaks Italian fluently, and is equating them to the Italian Air Force with our aircraft engines. The mission of the Army Language School is to give training to armed forces personnel so that they may act as translators, interpreters, and interrogators in any one of the countries linked with our defense. Heading the school's big staff of language specialists is the academic dean of the school, Dr. Lee Hamilton and his assistant, Mr. A. Koski. These men shape the training programs of the school, and from thousands of applications select the experts who teach our soldier students their new languages. Teachers come here from many backgrounds and professions. Many are women. This one, an expert in Mandarin Chinese, is a Mongolian princess and the daughter of a general in the Chinese Nationalist Army. Now she teaches American soldiers her strange tongue. Typical of the teachers at the school is this former artillery officer in the Russian Imperial Army. He knows communism well. For ten years he was held prisoner in a Russian concentration camp. Now he is a teacher in the Russian division. Poets, actors, engineers, priests. From many backgrounds come these unusual teachers. They all have one thing in common. They speak their mother tongue perfectly. The students at the school come from all parts of the country and from all ranks in the Army and Air Force. They come to study one of the twenty-four different languages taught at the school. Languages ranging from the familiar French in German to the more exotic Mandarin Chinese and Arabic. The students backgrounds are as different as the languages they come to learn. Soldiers, farm boys, college graduates, they range in age from seventeen to fifty but here they meet on common ground. Here you'll find a colonel from West Point in the same class with a private who never finished high school. Ahead of them is a tough long term of training. Korean and most other courses at the school take forty-six weeks to complete. On their first day new students are welcomed by the executive officer Lieutenant Colonel Robert J. De Maers and are told what lies before them. For the next forty-six weeks you'll be learning the Korean language and when you leave here you will speak Korean. Our teaching methods have been developed to a point where any normally intelligent person who works hard will be able to learn a foreign language in the time allocated. First you will learn the new sounds and speech patterns. Then you will go over them and over them and repeat them and repeat them until you know them by heart. Then you will learn sentences. After that you will practice the language conversationally. Then comes reading and writing. Now on the part of the school's commandant I wish you good luck. As for myself, my recommendation is relax but work hard. I will now turn you over to Mr. Soom who will teach you Korean for the first hour. Mr. Soom, will you take over now? Hello. How do you do? I'm glad to meet you. I realize most of you are not familiar with Korean characters. This will give you some idea of how the language is written. Translated it means Army, Language, School, Monterey, California, Korean Language Department. You will write like that before very long. But your main task is to speak and understand Korean. Now if you will open your books we will learn how to pronounce the vowels and consonants. This is how the Korean vowels sound. E, A, R, O, U. They are similar to English sounds. Now repeat after me. E, E, E, E, E. In the first few weeks of instruction the students get used to the new sounds of the foreign language. But at the end of the first day they are speaking simple words and phrases. Hello. How do you do? Hello. How do you do? Hello. How do you do? Hello. How do you do? Let's ask some questions. Let's ask some questions. Again please. For at least three hours every night students must continue to study. Photographs are issued to them and recorded lessons help the student to master the unusual sounds. By constant repetition, memorization and intensive oral drills the students absorb the new language. This is the same class after six months instruction. As the months go by and the course gets tougher, some students flunk out. Classes are held small in number to ensure individual instruction. Teachers are changed every hour to ensure a variety of accents. For eleven months the studying never lets up. After learning to speak the students must learn how to write. Hour after hour they copy unfamiliar characters and memorize them. There are thousands of symbols and characters to be learned and study does not let up for the entire 46 week course. But those who come through and the majority do can speak like natives. I will first go to Washington and go to Korea next year. When will you go to Korea? But even when they know the language students must still practice it conversationally every day. Inventing conversations, questioning and perfecting their accent. What are you going to do? I want to join the class. That's great. Then... Many training aids are used at the school and one of the most successful is teaching by cartoon. Cartoons depict certain situations and students must reenact the action, inventing their own dialogue as they go along. Here a Russian class acts out a sick call situation under the watchful eye of their teacher. Now. Now. Now. I can't see anything. You are in the office. Sit down. Sit down. What happened to me? Did you break your leg? No. Unfortunately you broke your leg. You will have to stay in the hospital for a long time. In the military hospital? Who will operate me? Doctor, my head is spinning. By stimulating the students' imaginative power and forcing him to speak conversationally, the cartoon method of teaching builds confidence and familiarity with the new language. Sand tables are used so that the soldier linguists can become familiar with everyday objects and sights. Major, will you please start by pointing out the buildings to your left? Yes, please. This is the Güterbahnhof. The Güterbahnhof. And here is the Stadtbahnhof. Please, Mr. Major. This is a water container. What is the small house at the end here? That's the small house at the end of the fort. No. Soon these students might be in a German village and they'll be perfectly at home. Everyday for six hours the training goes on whatever the language. These linguists must know their new language perfectly. They must know the slang expressions and the colloquialisms. They must be able to be completely at home in that country just as if it was their own backyard. Training in how to interrogate this part of the language course and these Russian students speaking of perfect Russian make believe they are questioning a partisan about the enemy's location and strength. Where is the ammunition dump? How many troops are there? Where is the radio station? Where is the radio station? The radio station is here. It protects the approach to the camp from the old railway and the highway. You don't know where it is? Do you live in the enemy's radio station? Yes, I know. It is located in the worst part of the war. When these men graduate from the Army Language School, they'll be equipped to handle any military assignment in the language they studied. That's right. Yes, that's right. To absorb local customs and further their knowledge, students read foreign newspapers and magazines. On Fridays, the school echoes to the sound of singing voices like these, for singing is another part of the training. To sing is to talk friendship, says Colonel Hickey, the school commandant, and students like these in the Bulgarian class sing the marching songs of a distant land. Furthering their studies of foreign folklore and custom, students attend international picnics. Here they join in the strange dances of countries far away. Getting as close as they can to the language they have studied for the past year, the advanced students wear the colorful native costumes and learn to play their new role easily. Students in the Russian classes take part in a Russian party and join in the traditional festivities of old Russia. A classroom learning must go on right up to graduation. Now fluent in a foreign language, students must listen to lectures on the history of the country and its racial characteristics and customs. They must cram into their heads military and technical terminology so that they can meet requirements of the armed services. Military symbols and signs must be learned all over again. The day is not too far off when these men might be teaching Persian soldiers. For years language training behind them, the students of the Army Language School go out to serve their country. In Europe and all over the world, they'll be at work interpreting, interrogating and translating, smoothing the course of understanding. Now in the field, like this interpreter accompanying a group of NATO observers, graduates put in the practical work for which they have trained so long. Today we are combining our efforts with the work of other nations to build a strong defense against those who might threaten our freedoms. The Mutual Security Agency designed to equip and train armed forces in the free world brought officers of foreign countries to army installations in the United States. Fort Benning, Georgia, the home of the infantry, plays host to many of these foreign soldiers. The Army Language School is represented here too. Army personnel at Fort Benning speak the language of their guests. When you consider that officers from 32 countries visit this installation, you can readily see the important contribution made here by the language school. These men get to know each other quickly. With mutual respect, they live together and work together. When you are thousands of miles from your homeland and you find someone who can speak your language, you no longer feel ill at ease. They hear this officer proudly tell them about Fort Benning and they find themselves looking forward to the weeks ahead. This is the beginning of their stay in the United States. They'll register here at the headquarters building and soon will become familiar with our army and our country. There's enough linguistic ability here to take care of everybody. Throwing out these documents, gentlemen. If there are any questions, just raise your hands and one of our officers will assist you. Yes, sir. Outfitted in army fatigues, they're ready to go to work. Like most army courses, this one starts off with an orientation lecture. Having men of many nationalities in one class makes everyone realize that more and more people who believe in a decent way of life are ready to defend that way of life. Perhaps the most interesting part of the course is an exciting demonstration of our weapons. These men from far off lands learn that, unlike the communist practice of throwing mass groups of men into battle, our army relies on firepower and thereby saves lives in combat. This firepower is aptly demonstrated for them in this display. Firepower to mobility. A visit to the airborne school at Benning, and these men learn how a modern army can quickly deploy large bodies of men and equipment and have them in fighting trim. Short jumps here, but this is only the beginning. Here for the first time, trainees get the feeling of falling through space. Still not the real thing, but plenty of action just the same. These are thrills in anybody's language. Each exercise is an introduction to the next. Several towers here allow a large number of trainees to get their practice before they jump from a plane. These facilities can quickly be expanded to handle an even larger group of men if the need arises. Our foreign visitors find this an ideal training program. Equipment is excellent, instruction is thorough, and most important of all, it is carried out as though life's dependent on it, which is a matter of fact it does. They wonder what it feels like falling to the earth under that big nylon umbrella, and they soon have a chance to find out. Any volunteers? Yes, one Danish, one Dutch, going up. There's time for the lighter side too, like visiting the homes of families in nearby Columbus, Georgia. Meeting in this informal setting gives everyone a chance to relax, to get to know each other better. This is welcome recreation, but our respect pleasantly in this manner are again an important part in strengthening our relationships with other countries. Not only is our army today the most modern, but it is also an army that recognizes its responsibilities. If we are to help train and equip other nations, we must understand the people of those nations. In creating this important understanding, the army linguists play an important part. Across the world, they are speaking and understanding. Stretching to the tents of Panmunjom and the truce talks. Again, armed forces interpreters are at work, bridging the gap of differences. Ambassadors in uniform. Soldiers armed with a powerful weapon. The weapon of words. Men and women of your army are stationed in countries all over the world. And a school such as this can contribute much, not only in training for possible military action, but in helping our troops convey an understanding of our way of life. It makes the job of building a worldwide defense much easier. Now some graduates of the Army Language School have been placed in important assignments with civil assistance. And that's our subject for next week. We'll take you to Korea and show you how our civil assistance program is functioning there. How your army is helping the Koreans help themselves. This is Captain Carl Zimmerman inviting you to be with us then. The big picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the army at home and overseas, produced by the Signal Corps Photographic Center, presented by the U.S. Army in cooperation with this station. You can be an important part of the big picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.