MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- On a frigid January morning in Hokkaido, Air Force Capt. Meghan Fong stood alongside American and Japanese Marines, providing interpretation and intercultural support to the 4th Marine Regiment. This remote place was a far cry from her native sunny California and a vastly different work environment from her familiar SCIFF at Fort Meade, yet for this Japanese language enabled Airman, exercise NORTHERN VIPER was the high mission impact, golden opportunity of a lifetime.
As a Japanese LEAP Scholar, Fong supported this bilateral United States Marine Corps – Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force exercise. “My aim was to help grow operational integration with our partner through translation and navigation of cultural differences, advocate for cultural competency within our forces, and catalyze strong people-to-people ties,” she said.
This is just one of many instances of Japanese LEAP Scholars bolstering the warfighting readiness of the Air Force, sister services and partners and allies. And when working with Japan, one of our most important allies in the crucial INDOPACOM region, Japanese LEAP Scholars are an exceptional tool for achieving lethality.
“The LEAP Scholars have been instrumental in enabling integration in exercises at both the tactical and operational levels,” said Ryunosuke “Ryun” Brown, a Country Engagement Analyst with the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, who has utilized Japanese LEAP Scholars in several multi-national exercises in the INDOPACOM region. “Their expertise in language and cultural fluency has been essential in facilitating Operations & Intelligence (O&I) syncs, functional coordination, and real-time language support in the field. Their contributions enhance interoperability, strengthen partnerships, and improve mission effectiveness, ultimately supporting the III Marine Expeditionary Forces’ warfighting readiness and lethality.”
But most Japanese LEAP Scholars don’t start out as catalysts for warfighting readiness. Their language, regional expertise and culture skills are nurtured and developed by the Air Force Culture and Language Center. The AFCLC utilizes e-mentor courses, which consist of online teaching from a language instructor, and Language Intensive Training Events where a LEAP Scholar is completely immersed in their language, often overseas.
“I have completed two LITEs in Tokyo, Japan which were pivotal moments in my language acquisition journey,” said Fong. “I would have never been able to achieve the level of conversational proficiency without the daily interactions and immersion that was possible through an in-country, homestay experience.”
Tech Sgt. Eric Johnson, a dental flight chief, found the eMentor program valuable in his development as a LEAP Scholar.
“I’ve had the pleasure of completing 3 Advanced eMentor courses,” he said. “What I like the most about them is that I’m able to use the instructors as a vector check. It helps me because they can point out my bad habits and help me better articulate things, and it boosts my confidence when they reaffirm my strengths. The role-playing also helps improve my skills with debate, analyzing topics, and being persuasive.”
These development tools are essential to the evolution of a LEAP Scholar but the skills they bring with their military expertise help them communicate on a technical level with partner allies, which is crucial for speeding up mission accomplishment in warfighting.
Capt. Shinryu Aoyama, a B-52 Bomber Pilot, emphasized the importance of this technical knowledge.
“Every Training Partnership Request that I have participated in has been full of technical and military vocabulary,” Aoyama said. “I find myself lucky to have a strategic aviation background. I learned very quickly that it is near impossible to translate if I do not understand the concept myself.”
The influence that LEAP Scholars have on mission speed when working with partner allies was echoed by Johnson.
‘LEAP lays the groundwork we need to succeed alongside our allies every day,” he said. “There is no multilateral mission success without clear communication among allies. The value of LEAP cannot be overstated. I’ve witnessed first-hand glimpses of how things go when there are no LEAP Scholars or interpreters available at a multilateral event with language barriers, and no one ever has pleasant things to say about them. When communication isn’t clear, it can waste valuable time.”
Lt. Col. James Guthrie, Commander of the 20th Component Maintenance Squadron, noted that the ability to speak fluently in both Japanese and in military terms is critical for the communication needed for mission success.
“Silver Flag is a Civil Engineering oriented event,” he said. “I knew nothing about building berms or rapid runway repair. But in order to prepare to support that event, I had to quickly learn some new vocabulary and then figure out how the JASDF actually say things. There’s the way we say things in the Air Force and then the way the average American says the same thing- and quite often they are different. Japanese is similar in that quite often your average Japanese person might say one thing, but the JASDF has their own specific way of referring to certain things. So, you end up interpreting all new words from Air Force English to regular English to regular Japanese then working with the JASDF to figure out how they actually say it.”
Guthrie is also one of several Japanese LEAP Scholars who have utilized the LREC skills they developed in LEAP to become a Foreign Area Officer. A Foreign Area Officer is a commissioned officer who specializes in international affairs. Their roles include advising senior leaders on political-military operations, building relationships with foreign leaders, coordinating security cooperation, and serving as defense attaché or political-military planners. Guthrie served as a FAO for three years, working on the INDOPACOM staff.
“I am a FAO because I graduated from a partner nation’s Intermediate Developmental Education program, which was aided by the fact that I was in LEAP,” said Guthrie. “FAOs absolutely contribute to warfighting readiness by being the more permanent bridge between our forces and our partner/allied nation’s warfighting forces. FAOs help build partner capacity through their Security Cooperation Office duties, build our nation’s awareness of other nation’s intentions and capabilities through attaché duties, and enhance our cooperative capabilities with partner nations by serving on staff where their language and cultural competence helps build relationships and serves to enhance senior leader understanding.”
Whether their military journey takes them to a role as a FAO, an immersion to Tokyo or living in a tent during an exercise with Marines, Japanese LEAP Scholars are an essential tool in achieving interoperability with our partner nations. Our ability to effectively communicate and interact with our allies gives us capability that our adversaries don’t have. Nowhere is this more evident than in the INDOPACOM region where Japanese LEAP Scholars are a big piece in achieving warfighting readiness with those allies.
“I’ve utilized LEAP scholars for multiple trilateral conferences and exercises,” said Ken McAdams, an Exercise Project Officer at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. “The events are either USA/Japan/Australia or USA/Japan/Korea. I can tell you that none of those exercises would be possible without the LEAP scholars. In the lens of warfighting readiness, the scholars assist in getting training for INDOPACOM based fighter pilots, tactical airlift and tanker crews, as well as maintenance and support personnel. We do a lot of that training in Japan, so their assistance in coordinating various aspects with the Government of Japan is indispensable. However, what they contribute is much more meaningful than that. They’re building strategic relationships, alliances and partnerships in the INDOPACOM theater. These exercises are training USAF, joint and coalition personnel on how to integrate with each other to achieve greater effects at a more efficient cost to each nation. This is a very difficult thing to do because we all speak different languages, have different cultures and operate differently. Learning to meld these diverse tactics, techniques and procedures is very difficult. We often have to discuss very nuanced issues, which would not be possible without the language and cultural expertise that LEAP scholars bring to the fight.”
A LEAP Scholar who has brought language and cultural expertise to the fight is Capt. Brian Reed, a UH-1N helicopter pilot. As a participant in several multinational exercises, he knows firsthand the impact LEAP Scholars can have on cultivating lethality in our forces.
“As a linguist for several iterations of Exercise Cope North, the biggest asset I see that LEAP provides for warfighting readiness is the capability of bridging language and cultural gaps,” Reed said. “LEAP Scholars provide the ability to strengthen partnerships with allied forces by facilitating effective communication and integration among the participating forces. Different countries speak different languages and have different customs and traditions – LEAP acts as the critical bridge between the U.S. and partner nations in order to ensure overall mission effectiveness and readiness in multinational settings. We take pride in being that language and culture bridge to facilitate U.S to Japan interoperability and ultimately further what is one of the world's most important and enduring alliances and a bedrock for a free and open Indo-Pacific.”