The Kevin Bacon Phenomenon – Fort Snelling
It’s crazy how things can come back around. I was reading the news on Wikipedia this afternoon and ended up following a few court case links to Dred Scott v. Sandford, which led me – of all places - to Fort Snelling.
Anyone from Minnesota knows about Fort Snelling. It’s an old army fortress on the Mississippi, close to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport and Mall of America, where we all had to go on school fieldtrips and costumed staff taught us about life in the Civil War period. Or maybe it’s that National Historical Landmark you have problem either driven past or visited with the family once or twice, right? Well, either way, I haven’t given Snelling much thought in a long time... until today when I unexpectantly stumbled across some intriguing facts about the area.
I was surprised to discover Snelling was actively used through WWII as the Military Intelligence Service Langauge School*, set up to teach Japanese to army personel. Ok, that caught my interest. The school was in MN... and Japanese? I know a guy from college who joined the army and was sent to study Korean at the Monteray Institute in CA (prob the best place in the country for languages - with ties to CLV!), which I think could be the same program, so I thought it was random it would have previously been hosted in my hometown. I guess Japanese should not be a huge shocker considering the secret language program was established on the same day the US entered WWII , but again, I found the location ironic.
I don’t have plans to join the army anytime soon, and I don’t know that I’ll be living in either California (Monteray) or Minnesota, for that matter, in the near future, but I still feel like there are some tangled webs here, bringing the past and present together. I am either forming some random and spread out connections, or the world really is a small place?! I'll have to drop by Snelling when I am home this summer and see if they have any more information.
Anyhoo, just a random, Friday afternoon rant. Things are slowing down, but the news and internet keep me entertained. Hope all is well where you're reading this. TGIF!
*FYI... The softer side of the military?: The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution, which provides linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other Federal Agencies and numerous and varied other customers. The Defense Language Institute is responsible for the Defense Language Program, and the bulk of the Defense Language Institute's activities involve educating DOD members in assigned languages. Other functions include planning, curriculum development, and research in second-language acquisition.
Anyone from Minnesota knows about Fort Snelling. It’s an old army fortress on the Mississippi, close to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport and Mall of America, where we all had to go on school fieldtrips and costumed staff taught us about life in the Civil War period. Or maybe it’s that National Historical Landmark you have problem either driven past or visited with the family once or twice, right? Well, either way, I haven’t given Snelling much thought in a long time... until today when I unexpectantly stumbled across some intriguing facts about the area.
I was surprised to discover Snelling was actively used through WWII as the Military Intelligence Service Langauge School*, set up to teach Japanese to army personel. Ok, that caught my interest. The school was in MN... and Japanese? I know a guy from college who joined the army and was sent to study Korean at the Monteray Institute in CA (prob the best place in the country for languages - with ties to CLV!), which I think could be the same program, so I thought it was random it would have previously been hosted in my hometown. I guess Japanese should not be a huge shocker considering the secret language program was established on the same day the US entered WWII , but again, I found the location ironic.
I don’t have plans to join the army anytime soon, and I don’t know that I’ll be living in either California (Monteray) or Minnesota, for that matter, in the near future, but I still feel like there are some tangled webs here, bringing the past and present together. I am either forming some random and spread out connections, or the world really is a small place?! I'll have to drop by Snelling when I am home this summer and see if they have any more information.
Anyhoo, just a random, Friday afternoon rant. Things are slowing down, but the news and internet keep me entertained. Hope all is well where you're reading this. TGIF!
*FYI... The softer side of the military?: The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution, which provides linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other Federal Agencies and numerous and varied other customers. The Defense Language Institute is responsible for the Defense Language Program, and the bulk of the Defense Language Institute's activities involve educating DOD members in assigned languages. Other functions include planning, curriculum development, and research in second-language acquisition.
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 6:26 PM
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