Terps

The downside to waging wars in countries other than Great Britain, Australia, and Canada is that the local people generally do not speak the same language as the American soldiers. This same problem occurs within the United States when soldiers from New England go to the South, when soldiers from the South go to the Southwest, and when soldiers from Iowa go anywhere outside of the Mid-West. While ancient armies spent enough time in the lands of the people they conquered to learn the languages and customs, the armies of the Global War on All things Bad and Terrible decided to rely on the use of interpreters, or terps.
The qualifications to be an interpreter were very strict and had multiple tiers. In order to achieve the first tier, one had to be able to speak the local language, smell like the inside of a gym bag full of dirty jockstraps, and speak at least one phrase or five curse words of English. These phrases were frequently taken from rap videos.
The first interpreter LT Fats used on a patrol told him that a local shopkeeper was trying to tell him that "He love at wayn you cole heem beeg poe-pah." This was after the interpreter carried on a five minute conversation with the shopkeeper during which he bought a kibab, slapped four different children, and attempted to trade the platoon radio/telephone operator for the shopkeeper's daughter.
"I hate my interpreter," Fats complained to Ox and Juden. "And I think I need to get a new RTO that doesn't look like a 12-year old. I wish I had yours, Juden. He's good."
This was true. Juden's interpreter was applying to be a second tier interpreter. The qualifications included all of those necessary for a level one with the additional requirements to understand enough English to recite an entire rap song, complain about working too much, and use at least one personalized catchphrase. Furthermore, second tier interpreters smelled like a gym bag full of dirty jockstraps onto which a bottle of cheap cologne had been spilled.
When Juden took his interpreter to the same shopkeeper, he discovered that what the man actually said was, "I need you halp me. He say he see me tonight three day goyn (which Ox eventually learned meant "three nights ago"), I should tack vakeshun. Wan me bring you nice cologne from Baghdad? You be beeg peempon, spannin' da jeez. " Additionally, Juden's interpreter was able to steal a live sheep from the man, only to have to return it when the soldiers couldn't find room to fit it in any of their vehicles.
"Doesn't matter," Juden told Fats. "Ox has the only one who actually speaks English."
"True, but he can't walk more than fifty feet without passing out," Ox stated. "He'd be useless on patrol."
Ox used the interpreter CPT Hugnis chose for all of his sheik meetings. Nicknamed Daud, this obese interpreter could translate accurately for an hour before requiring medical assistance to continue breathing. When not working, Daud spent his time evenly split between the chow tent and the medical tent, with the occasional break in his pattern to tell LT Ox that all the interpreters were going to quit.
"I'm very sorry, seer, but all of terps say we leave today if we do not have longer vacations," Daud would claim every three days.
"Well, as it is, you work two weeks and get two weeks off," LT Ox would remind him, "And your salary is ten times the Abu Dahbu average. Furthermore, if you quit now, we'll simply toss you out of the back of a truck in the middle of the population whose demands you've been misinterpreting. Maybe they'll offer you a better job, or maybe they'll behead you on camera and send the video to your families in Baghdad. Up to you."
"Oh no, seer, we won't quit," Daud would quickly respond. "I jest need more time to take care of sick mother. She very worried about me and has cancer."
"Right," nodded LT Ox after a few similar requests. "Isn't this the same mother who I've given you extra vaction time for three times and whose funeral you've attended twice?"
"No, is a different mother," Daud responded, "On my father's side."
"Ok, I'll do my best," Ox replied, having no intention to give the matter another thought.
"Thank you, sir," Daud saluted. "You tha real Slam Sheedy, and owl other Slam Sheedy's be jest eemadeeting."
"Word to your mother on your father's side," Ox saluted back with a gang sign, or with what his pale-skinned rural Bible-belt upbringing made him think a gang sign might look like.
This pattern of misunderstanding, resignation threats, and rap greeting continued until an entirely new type of interpreter arrived at the outpost. This one was not in the tier system. He was in entirely different category. Zenzem was a naturalized U.S. citizen, having served in the army to become so.
"Ox, we've got a U.S. citizen with a secret security clearance to translate for us now," CPT Hugnis directed. "I'm sick of not understanding a damn word these stinky bastards are saying, so I'm claiming him for the rest of my patrols. Got it?"
Ox made it so, and for every single patrol CPT Hugnis attended for the rest of that day, Zenzem went along.
"Dammit, Ox, I'm never taking that dipshit on patrol with me again," CPT Hugnis fumed, storming into the command post. "I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Didn't look like any of the sheiks could understand him either. They all made faces at us like we had dicks on our foreheads the whole time. I started to think I did have a dick on my forehead. I don't have a dick on my forehead, do I? I swear, if Juden's squad leaders drew a dick on my forehead, I'll..."
"There's no dick on your forehead, sir," Ox interupted.
"No balls?" Hugnis continued. "No ass, boobs, third eye, or other horrible thing that would make those sheiks stare at me like I ..."
"Sir, I promise there's nothing more on your face than the usual grime that accumulates on all of us while we reside in this God-forsaken country," Ox assured his commander. "After speaking with Daud and getting past the usual resignation threats, I've come to the conclusion that Zenzem is actually a bushman and speaks no Arabic."
"What the hell is a bushman?" CPT Hugnis asked.
Ox, the Ball company cultural expert, explained: "They are members of one of the few remaining African tribes untouched by western civilization. They speak a language that absolutely no one else in the world understands with a grammar structure unlike any dialect of any major language group. Zenzem's home language is no closer to Arabic than it is to English, Chinese, or Klingon."
"So you're saying he's useless to us?" CPT Hugnis asked.
"Less that useless, actually," Ox continued. "I took the liberty of calling the battalion interpreter manager to ask about Zenzem. According to ETO 22, we must treat all interpreters who are American citizens as an essential part of our intel gathering process. We must use his insite in our planning process and take him as our interpreter whenever we conduct meetings with sources. However, since his grasp of English is entirely based on the use of pronouns, simply attempting to understand his ramblings will take hours of our intel gatherers' time every day without providing any useful results."
"Zat way, zey went to zem, and zen zay said zey supposed to do zat sing," Zenzem explained to intel cell next door.
"Ox," CPT Hugnis sighed as he walked away, "I got a feeling this is going to be a long deployment."
"You got zat right, sir," Ox mumbled.