Pentagon: Learn Russian and Chechen and earn an extra 500 a month

Pentagon: Learn Russian and Chechen and earn an extra $ 500 a month

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US Air Force servicemen, who speak foreign languages, get an increase to their salary. Thus, for knowing the Russian and the Chechen languages they will get extra $ 500 a month, the Free Press agency, citing US sources, reports.

Surcharge could ne received by all servicemen, and not only those whose duties require proficiency in foreign languages, for example, interpreters or scouts.

The US Defense divided foreign languages, necessary for the servicemen, into three groups.

The first group - "extremely necessary" - includes, in particular, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French, Korean, Portuguese, Turkish, Turkmen, Pashto, Dari, Farsi.

The second group - "the languages required in cases of crises, potential threats" - includes Georgian, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Uzbek, Serbo-Croatian, Hebrew, Czech, Vietnamese, and languages of some nations in Africa.

The last one - "other languages" - includes Chechen, Ukrainian and several other languages of the former Soviet republics.

Currently, the US Air Force has about 4,3 thousand people receiving language allowance - an average of 500 dollars a month, said the Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Valenzuela.

For the knowledge of two languages, you can get a bonus twice. But the servicemen must annually certify their knowledge of foreign language by passing appropriate exams.

The Pentagon started promoting the knowledge of foreign languages after it concluded that the success of various foreign military operations largely depends on the ability of soldiers to communicate in the native language of the country where they are conducted.

I could use an extra $1000 a month!
Although I'm not part of any armed forces. I should have payed more attention back at school I guess.

[edit on 20-3-2010 by spacebot]

Now if you know two of these languages.
and stayed in the military for 20 to 30 years and banked the money it would total $240.000 to $360000 plus interest.

Plus the military would deploy you often so you would likely get extra pay for that.
Maybe even combat pay or hardship duty pay that could add up to maybe $20000 to $100,000 over 20 years.

Because of this special duty likely your rank would go up faster then Joe blow that did not deploy as often and that could start at $25 to $50 to start and end up $100 to $200 a month after 40 years.

I would say this could be worth $350,000 to $600,000 over 20 to 30 years in the service.
And then you add in your military retirement and then working as a military contractor after you retired from the military.

If someone was lucky they might have over 1 million after it all was done.
retire at 55 with 1 million plus low cost medical and commissary. priceless

[edit on 20-3-2010 by ANNED]