AEDC airman to study Swahili in LEAP program

  • Published
  • By Patrick Ary
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  There's a good chance most people know how to speak a few words of a language other than their native tongue.

That other language is most likely a common one taught in high school, such as Spanish, French or German.

But Air Force 2nd Lt. Wes Meredith forgot any of the French he took in school a long time ago. His language of choice: Swahili.

Lieutenant Meredith, a project manager at AEDC, has been speaking Swahili for the last three or four years. Now, he's making sure his ability to speak the language remains sharp in a region where you'd be hard-pressed to find someone else who speaks it.

Lieutenant Meredith recently was accepted into the Language Enabled Airmen Program (LEAP), which the Air Force started earlier this year. The program is aimed at finding Airmen who speak a foreign language and ensuring they maintain their abilities through individual customized sustainment plans. Lieutenant Meredith is one of about 260 volunteers who were selected for foreign language instruction.

Through LEAP, Lieutenant Meredith will receive continuing education through his Air Force career to ensure his Swahili skills don't diminish. It's something he says will help him greatly because of where he's currently stationed.

"Honestly, who am I going to talk to in Swahili in Middle Tennessee?" Lieutenant Meredith said. "I'm going to lose it really fast. So this helps."

Lieutenant Meredith had been using Rosetta Stone software to keep his Swahili current until a couple of months ago. Now, as part of LEAP, he will attend a Language Intensive Training Event (LITE) that will last four to six weeks. The exact date will be scheduled after the first of the year. After that, he will stay up-to-date on his language skills with five hours a week of online tutoring and lessons and will attend more LITEs every year or two.

The LEAP program also will help Lieutenant Meredith develop a more formal proficiency in Swahili, since most of his knowledge of the language is conversational. He says it's not as complex as English, and he would rather be learning it than his native language.

"English would be ridiculous to learn," he said. "Swahili's pretty easy."

Lieutenant Meredith grew up in Africa but didn't start learning Swahili until he started high school. His parents are missionaries, and they moved from Atlanta to Zambia when he was three years old. They lived there until deciding to move to Kenya when he reached high school, and that's where he started learning the new language.

Lieutenant Meredith said even though English is Kenya's national language, speaking and understanding Swahili helped him when it came to interacting with the locals there. "You get better prices on things if you have to bargain for something," he said. "Pretty much everything can be bargained for, but you get better prices if you speak Swahili, because they know you're local and they won't charge you exorbitant amounts the way they would a foreign person."

While it helped him in everyday life while he lived in Kenya, Lieutenant Meredith plans to use his knowledge of Swahili to help his future in the Air Force.

It may just be a conversation point here at AEDC, but later in his career he wants his aptitude in a foreign language to get him back to Kenya as a regional affairs strategist. He believes knowing Swahili now will help him broaden his career faster than making a decision later and spending time learning at the Defense Language Institute.

And he has another reason for wanting to go to Africa: his family.

"My brother goes to high school over there and he graduates next July. I don't know if they'll stay or go," Lieutenant Meredith said. "I hope they stay."

The Air Force Culture and Language Center plans to select 400 volunteer officer participants each year for the LEAP program and is currently working on a similar program for enlisted members and Air Force civilian employees.