Panetta at Monterey

Panetta: Language Training Critical to U.S. Interests, Security

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta today returned to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center he championed as a congressman to praise the next generation of military linguists he called critical to the United States’ future.

Panetta told an assembly of about 2,500 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines standing in formation on Soldier Field overlooking Monterey Bay that the language and cultural training they are receiving here is critical to the nation’s economic, diplomatic and security interests. “It is absolutely vital to what the United States is all about,” he said.

One of the 2500 was ours. But he didn't have much of a view...