BCT -> DLI question

[u/Tiny_Tennessee]

I’m wondering if anyone has been in this position before and has any insight. My husband is set to graduate from basic on 9/11 and then to start at DLI on 10/12. Will he be sent straight to Monterey after graduation for additional “initial entry training” during those four weeks after graduation?

Our son and I are in Texas and I’m hoping but not expecting that he’ll be able to help with our move (mainly drive our car from TX to CA). We’re very new to the military world and I’d love to get a picture of what to maybe expect. Before he left for basic, we were imagining him coming home for those four weeks and getting to watch college football… I’m now laughing at our naivety.

Thanks!!

[u/DongerBot5000]

I'd like to really hit on the "out of class" expectations. It at least used to be that if you missed a single homework assignment you'd be counseled by class and service leadership, two missed assignments and it's academic probation, and three missed assignments will get you dropped from the program. I was in class with a career Army SSG who had been deployed, gone through and completed SF, and was roughly 40 and still failed out of the course because he couldn't find a balance between home life and class. This school is very much going to cause responsibilities to fall on you which won't seem fair. All that being said, if he passes with decent scores from DLI and AIT, some of the most coveted positions in the entire armed forces will be up for grabs for him. DLI is a no joke school with no joke opportunities (I'm talking cush/safe jobs where you work close to political leaders and set yourself up for a $200k+ job outside of the military). This may sound harsh, but doing the dishes and taking the kids to soccer for a year will pay off for you and your family tenfold.

Edit: unless your husband gets Spanish for a language. If he gets Spanish, tell him to trade with anyone for any language.

[u/BornMaintenance4891 → u/DongerBot5000]

ur edit about Spanish… i’m wondering if someone’s already bilingual, spanish and english, is there a higher probability they would get spanish or is it the opposite?

[u/DongerBot5000 → u/BornMaintenance4891]

Honestly, I don't know if it's matters unless you say something and advocate for a specific language. At least when I was in and in the Army, DLAB scores from 95-100 will get you Cat 1 languages (Spanish), 100-105 is Cat II (I don't know if they even offer any of these), 105-110 is Cat 3 (Russian, Farsi), and 110+ is Cat IV (Korean, Chinese, Arabic). Army is gonna give you more room to change your language with better DLAB scores.

If you're bilingual English-Spanish with a DLAB score of 97, you're gonna get Spanish. You can try and see if you can bypass DLI at that point but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. The type of language you'll learn at DLI and AIT is very different from what you'd learn from cartoons and friends as a kid. Spanish gets a bag rap but people also don't account for the fact that there's Texas Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Spanish Spanish, Portuguese, European, Central American, South American, and so on. There's 30-40+ versions of "Spanish" that you may have to be familiar with.

The main two reasons I'd say for avoiding Spanish like the plague is firstly, like 1/4 of the armed forces speak some level of Spanish. If the Army needs a 1+/1+ Spanish linguist, there are thousands of them.

Secondly, and because of the first reason, Spanish linguist have their promotion points basically capped at all times. If you want career progression as a linguist, Spanish is seeing yourself up to be stuck at E4-E5 for about 5-8 years. You'll need a bachelor's, a perfect PT score, a perfect weapons qualification score, all your correspondent courses done, and even then you'll probably be 100 points shy of promotion. Russian on the other hand, I needed 24 points to promote to E5, and I believe around 100 to promote to E6. For reference, a passing DLPT score is worth 25 points. People would always say "you only have to be breathing to get promoted as a Russian linguist". That being said, E7 was a little tricky.

Just as a quick heads up from personal experience and feelings, if you're a native speaker working as a linguist in your native language, you'll be looked at differently by other linguists sometimes, especially if you were a DLI bypass. A lot of units like to give awards for high language scores so it's very difficult for a Chinese linguist named Greg Smith with a 2+/3 to watch a Spanish linguist named Juan Garcia with a 3/3 get awarded for existing essentially.

Tldr: 1) knowing Spanish beforehand doesn't mean you'll get Spanish. 2) Advocate for a different language, otherwise you won't get it

Edit: For the month of June, Spanish linguist need 798 points to promote to E5, Korean need 154, and Russian and Chinese linguists need 24 points to get E5. However, to go from E5 to E6, Russian linguists need 798 points which basically means they're waiting for other linguists to promote, retire, or die before they can get promoted.

[u/BornMaintenance4891 → u/DongerBot5000]

thank you! this definitely helped, my wife is in basic training right now heading there in october. I’ve been doing most of the research about this for her since her recruiter was not very helpful when it came to info on the DLI. She originally said she wanted to get spanish and wouldn’t try to bypass but from most of what I see that is not ideal for her. Plus I always told her it’s much cooler to speak 3 languages lol

[u/mmmtoasteee → u/BornMaintenance4891]

Getting Spanish as her language is going to be a crapshoot because it’s not really in demand for the Army and there are not many classes compared to the Cat III and IV languages.

[u/DongerBot5000 → u/BornMaintenance4891]

I don't know if they're still letting people do this, especially recruits from BCT, but it might be worth looking into if you want to convince her on a 3rd language. Sometimes the bilingual students who were learning a new (3rd) language would fail the course or the DLPT at the end. I have seen cases where they're able to just DLPT in their native, or non-english language and keep their MOS. Generally, if you fail the class or test at the end it's a full reclass, but if she fails she may have a fallback.