Defense Language Institute

And so I was like, OK, OK. um in michigan there is not a big military community at all i knew of people that were in the military but where i live now in washington state there are military bases all over like you see people in uniform all the time and um kind of get a little bit of idea of what military life is like but i had no clue i literally thought they were going to hand me a nerf gun and send me out to a football field and be like here practice war because i had seen some like braveheart movie or something i don't know um so i talked to a recruiter i thought about being uh something in the medical fields that had always kind of interest me and then they talked me into taking a test that might open up another doorway and long story short with that i ended becoming a chinese cryptologic linguist at the age of 17.

So yeah, I went to school in Monterey, California at the Defense Language Institute and learned how to read, speak and do everything related to Chinese.

And I met my husband and we got married when I was 19 and I did a total of four years in the military.

After we both got out, he is from Washington state.

There are some great stories.

I mean, I, I remember, uh, interviewing Dr. Barbara Oakley many years ago, and she was telling me these stories about how... 'cause she went to DLI in the US, and she learned Russian there, and she ended up on these kind of Russian oil platforms, like drinking vodka with all these, all these, all these, all these Russians.

I- it- some amazing stories.

Yeah.

So when you graduate, where do you go?

I went to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and it was not a hardship

tour.

Was this your first time being in California?

Yeah, so this is the first stop in my tech school.

And when you go through foreign language training as a military member, it doesn't matter what service you're in.

If you're Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, you go to DLI, Defense Language Institute of Monterey, California.

All the languages that we might need our military members to be familiar with are taught out there.

I went to, went to school out in Monterey for Vietnamese.

So here, here I was out of the, the cotton fields of North Carolina, suddenly transported to California, beautiful Monterey Bay, Defense Language Institute, going to eight hours a day for one year, 40, 47 weeks, um, Vietnamese language immersion.

I learned, wow, not only is it language, it is everything about how we interact with other people.

Facial expressions.

think, I guess I'll go with Arabic.

And then, so I started my education for that program in Defense Language Institute and Like six months later, all these new new sailors show up and they have these fun languages like Farsi, Hebrew and Italian.

And I was like, where was this? But that's the importance of budget management.

That's really

So 9-11 happens.

And, you know, we're I'm in Monterey, California, the Defense Language Institute.

And it's run by the army.

But Marine Corps are known for their ability to for security.

I was just a little bit older, a little bit more mature.

And so they grabbed me and a couple other guys.

The Defense Language Institute was not secure at all.

We had a public road running right through it with no gates.

But Fort Ord was on the base realignment and closure committee, and so now Fort Ord is known as UCál Monterey Bay.

But anyways, when I was there back in 1993, um, I just absolutely fell in love with the Monterey Bay where I did my schooling at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey.

It's right off of Cannery Road, right down on Lighthouse Road.

It's, uh, wedged between the city of Monterey and the city of Pebble Beach, where they have the Pebble Beach Golf Tournament-

But we need, you know, I've spent a lot of time in China and Taiwan and Hong Kong, right? So I have a certain viewpoint from speaking that language.

And I'm not saying everybody should go to DLI and that's the Defense Language Institute, or maybe they should.

But, you know, there are certain teachings and certain thoughts that That understanding how the Chinese think and studying Chinese history and studying the Chinese language and studying, you know, their textbooks and their works.

I mean, that gives you a better idea of, you know, the Chinese approach to deterrence, let's say.