Photo By Staff Sgt. Kelly Wiebe | U.S. Army Sgt. Daniil Rubashka, a Russian Linguist with Alpha Company, 341st Military...... read more read more
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SALT LAKE CITY — Military service, by its very nature, forces service members to have a competitive mindset, and this is no exception for military linguists.
Seven Soldiers with the 341st Military Intelligence Battalion (Linguist), 56th Theatre Information Operations Group, Washington National Guard, traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, to compete in the seventh annual Best Linguist Competition, Feb. 6, 2025.
The Washington National Guard linguists were awarded the title of Command Linguistics Program of the Year in what is the premier language competition across the entire Defense language Enterprise and provides a crossroads between foreign language training and Military Intelligence disciplines.
The competition, hosted by the 300th Military Intelligence Brigade, Utah National Guard, welcomed more than 300 linguists from organizations across the DOD, as well as civilian competitors. Active-duty, Reserve, and National Guard Soldiers represented the Army, with Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy service members also competing.
This year’s competition featured 280 participants across 40 teams, each consisting of seven members. Competitors represented over 100 organizations from across the national security enterprise. The scenario-driven competition covered all phases of the defense intelligence cycle, evaluating the linguists' ability to apply their language, cultural, and technical expertise across seven languages.
“Competition is important,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Daniil Rubashka, a Russian linguist and native Russian speaker with the 341st MI BN (L), “It’s also an opportunity to showcase your skills and to improve on them, so that we will always be the most lethal fighting force going forward.”
Rubashka, who also speaks Ukrainian and Mandarin Chinese, won the 300th MI BD (L) Linguistics Professional of the Year.
“I’m grateful for this award,” said Rubashka. "I've been in the military for five years, but I’ve been a linguist since I was probably eight and had to help my parents with translation, so I feel like [I’ve been] a linguist since then.”
Other members competing on the 341st MI BN (L) team included Sgt. Jacob Farrows (French), Cadet Sueyeon Kim (Korean), Sgt. Shufei Yin (Mandarin Chinese), Staff Sgt. Ben Woyvodich (Modern Standard Arabic), and Sgt. Colton Abraham (Spanish) from Alpha Company, 341st MI BN (L). Sgt. Shahim Palman (Persian Farsi), with Charlie Company, 341st MI BN (L), Illinois National Guard, filled out the team of seven.
“I felt great about my team the moment I stepped into it,” said Capt. Evan Shelton, command language program manager for the Washington National Guard. “Today the team looked confident and loose and they took everything in stride. We feel very good about how we’ve invested our training efforts and it looks like they’re very well prepared out there.”
After check-in, teams received a “Road to War” brief before moving on to individual tasks, where evaluators graded them on voice intercept, document exploitation (DOMEX), site exploitation, (SITEX), operational analysis, and open source collection missions, culminating in a commander’s brief.
During the voice intercept challenge, team members translated material they received live via headphones. They quickly translated and transcribed intricate foreign speech while prioritizing and transcribing the gathered intelligence.
The DOMEX involved competitors identifying materials they gathered, deciding what is important and what may be a red herring.
In the SITEX, teams geared up with helmets and simulated weapons to find intelligence in a darkened environment, using night vision equipment to search vehicles. They recorded all evidence they found within the stressful and loud simulation.
Open source collection involved receiving and processing large quantities of intelligence. Teams used their knowledge of language and culture to identify disinformation, propaganda and any outright fiction.
The teams then ended with a Commander’s Brief, summarizing everything they’d found throughout the competition.
“We have a ton of good intelligence professionals in our state,” Shelton added. “You want to do right by them because they’re doing amazing things…It would be a disservice not to bring our ‘A-game’ as both a program and recognizing our stars.”
| Date Taken: | 02.13.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.13.2025 15:26 |
| Story ID: | 490765 |
| Location: | SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, US |
| Web Views: | 256 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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