Culture in Conflict by Paula Holmes-Eber

Author:Paula Holmes-Eber [Holmes-Eber, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9780804791908
Google: 04w5AwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2014-05-21T03:22:54+00:00

SOURCE: CAOCL survey

NOTE: Using an inter-item correlation matrix for the five attitudinal questions, the Cronbach’s Alpha calculated for the five items was .852, indicating a strong positive relationship between all of the attitude questions.

Most interesting, however, were the responses from the Marines who held ground combat specialties (such as infantry, artillery, tank operators, and engineers).3 As discussed in chapter 2, the “guys on the ground” are considered the heart of the Marine Corps. Although Marine Corps ideology describes the guys on the ground as the hard-fighting, hard-charging “grunts,” according to the survey, it appears they are also the ones at the “tip of the spear” in experiencing and responding to cultural challenges in theater. The ground combat Marines reported spending almost twice as much time interacting with the local population (47 percent) in comparison to other respondents (29 percent). For laymen, in statistical terms, the probability (p) that these differences could simply exist by chance is less than 1 in a 1,000 (p < .000).4 Not surprisingly, the “guys on the ground” stated they also used language skills (p < .000)5 and cultural skills (p < .000)6 significantly more often to accomplish the goals of their mission than their combat support partners. And reflecting their view that these skills were important to accomplishing the mission, the “guys on the ground” ranked the importance of using language skills (p < .000)7 and understanding the local culture (p < .000)8 significantly higher than combat support respondents.

One of the more important results of these survey findings was that Marines considered cultural skills to be significantly (in repeated statistical tests) more important than language for enabling mission effectiveness.9 One possible reason that emerged from the qualitative data was that in many cases Marines had interpreters who could translate the language for them, and so given the difficulties in learning non-European languages such as Arabic, they preferred to turn to native speakers to assist them.

Culture as a Decoding Problem: Subject Matter Experts, “Terps,” and Heritage Speakers

As Sayyid’s story at the beginning of this chapter poignantly illustrates, one of the first steps the Marine Corps (and other services) took at the beginning of the invasion in Iraq was to hire or locate individuals within the Marine Corps and other services who understood the culture and language of Iraq. This early solution to the problem reflected the military’s and Marine Corps’ assumption that culture and language (which were considered as virtually synonymous and interchangeable in the first couple of years of the culture venture) could be “decoded.”

One long-established military occupational specialty (MOS) is that of the cryptolinguist—decoders who study the secret messages of the enemy in order to figure out what the enemy is doing. Not surprisingly, then, one initial view of culture was that it was simply another language code that could be broken with the right tools or interpreters. In this view, culture/language was a code that military cryptolinguists or their translators and subject matter experts (SMEs) could easily decode with enough time and resources.

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